







r 



HEATHER 














HEATHER 


BY 

JOHN TREVENA 

AUTHOR OF 

“a pixy in petticoats,” “ arminel of the west,” 
“furze the cruel” 








NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 




1909 



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This work forms the second volume of a moorland trilogy, the 
first of which, dealing with Furze as representing the spirit of 
Cruelty, has been published. Heather, which flourishes only in 
pure air and sunshine, and blossoms again though it is torn by 
winds, seems to represent the spirit of Endurance. The author 
hopes to complete his work with “ Granite ” as representing the 
spirit of Strength. 





4 


> I m 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY : ABOUT THE LITTLE HOUSE ON 

THE ROOF ..... I 

I. ABOUT PATIENTS .... 9 

II. ABOUT WHEAL DREAM . . . .22 

III. ABOUT A MIXED FAMILY • • • 37 

IV. ABOUT GREGORY BREAKBACK . . -50 

V. ABOUT A RECTOR AND HIS VISITORS . 60 

VI. ABOUT THE FORD WHICH LIETH ON THE EAST 

SIDE OF ST. Michael’s chapel of halstock 72 

VII. ABOUT jars . . . . . 91 

VIII. ABOUT A HALF-HOLIDAY . . *105 

IX. ABOUT ANOTHER HALF-HOLIDAY . . 1 24 

X. ABOUT MATRIMONY AND THE LANE WHICH WAS 

CALLED MORTGABLE . . . . 14O 

XI. ABOUT ST. Michael’s white violets and green 

OAKS . . . . .157 

XII. ABOUT THE GREAT DOWNACOMBE REBELLION . 1 77 

XIII. ABOUT WEIGHTS AND MEASURES . . 203 

XIV. ABOUT REALITIES AND UNREALITIES . .229 

XV. ABOUT NOVEMBERITIS . . . 253 

XVI. ABOUT CONTRASTS . . . .284 

XVII. ABOUT EVICTIONS .... 304 

XVIII. ABOUT THE WILD GARDEN . . -32 7 

vii 


vni 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

XIX. 

ABOUT 

THE FESTIVAL OF CUPS . 

. 

PAGE 

• 347 

XX. 

ABOUT 

SMOKE 

• 

370 

XXI. 

ABOUT 

ST. piran’s sands 

• 

• 390 

XXII. 

ABOUT 

LAUREL LEAVES 

• 

405 

XXIII. 

ABOUT 

UNCONVENTIONAL CONDUCT 

• 

. 424 

XXIV. 

ABOUT 

A PAGAN SACRIFICE . 

• 

438 

XXV. 

ABOUT 

A SUNSET OF DREAMS . 

• 

• 4 .“; I 

XXVI. 

ABOUT 

A TWILIGHT OF GOLD 

. 

462 


HEATHER 


INTRODUCTORY 

ABOUT THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE ROOF 

The ancient Hoga de Cossdone, now called Cawsand 
Beacon, is a house beaten by the wind; down its sides 
water weeps copiously into the bogs of its basement. Who 
can tell the number of its storeys or what the dark rooms 
contain; what bones of cold-blooded reptiles and warm- 
blooded men; what strange fossils of tree and fern? We 
do not know whether there is coal in its cellars or gold 
in its granite safe. We toil up its sides and walk about 
on the roof, perceiving that water has been laid on 
abundantly, that the sanitation is perfect; we get into 
realms where the air has never been polluted, where the 
wind sweeps across the roof-garden of heather; and there 
upon the heights, where clouds seem to feed like sheep, 
we stumble upon a stone chest, a grave, a kistvaen ; and 
old moormen call that the House of Cosdon. 

Fifty years ago there were bones, they say, in that tiny 
stone house clinging like a parasite on the roof of the big 
one, but they have gone now ; body-snatchers have picked 
them all out like children dragging foxgloves from the 
hedges and flinging them away in wasteful mischief ; a 
quaint kind of resurrection, but good enough, for bones 
have not the beauty of hedge flowers. The tenant of the 
little house has gone his way, and nobody is sorry, for 
however great he may have been once, his name has 
perished, he is remembered only as the owner of the little 
house among the heather, and he didn’t make good his 
title to that until he was dead; being gone to the last 

I 


2 


Heather 


poor bone he leaves no message, but the little house on 
the big roof speaks for him, better than he could have 
done himself. “ Bide here, traveller, look down, du’ye 
bide a minute on your way to spoil the life of that maid 
or to rob that ignorant countryman of his money. Con- 
sider how short-lived are the annual blossoms above the 
perennial roots ; so is the flower of your life compared to 
the grave. Bide a bit, traveller ! Perhaps you’ll change 
your mind.” 

Not that the little house talks quite that way. It is only 
a rough, uneducated chest of stone, and does not under- 
stand Siste^ viator! or much of the wonderful language 
of epitaph-makers. The ordinary traveller will not want 
to stay after he has knocked off a bit of the tomb as a 
memento, and broken his knife in trying to record his 
illustrious initials upon the granite; but if he is anything 
better than bleached bones himself he has to; for the 
little house insists upon prattling, not in an eloquent way 
by any means, being only a primitive box of Dartmoor 
stone; it has no learning, and is very often at a loss for 
a word — its tenant had nothing to give it but his bones — 
and sometimes it has to use quaint phrases of its own; 
and yet it can tell a story merely because it is a tomb and 
lies upon the roof ; just as a little pair of boots in an 
almost forgotten cupboard, or a dainty garment hanging 
behind the door of a long unused bedroom talk most 
horribly, because they are not boots or garment but 
tongues crying like the tomb, “Stay, traveller, stay!” 
Those little boots, that dainty garment, are shrines, fellow- 
travellers; temples of the deity to whom we have given 
our whole souls. We cannot pass them by without blinded 
eyes and a wild heart. 

You may linger long enough upon the great roof before 
hearing the voice from the little house. Perhaps you will 
never hear it. Perhaps when it does come it is nothing 
but the wind through the heather. That does not matter, 
for the little house talks of nothing but gales and tempests 
and storm-clouds roaring past. Some day, when the sky 
is low and tumbling, and there is nothing else but space, 
you may hear it thus — 

” Bide a bit, will ye? That’s right. I’ve seen ye often 
enough on the roof tramping to and fro wi’ the little dog, 


About the Little House on the Roof 3 

wondering why yew and the dog and the mountain were 
made and how ’tis all going to end. Well, I can’t tell ye 
though I’ve abin here a time, avore ever the river ran 
down under, and avore there was stars on the ground. 
Lights yew call ’em, I reckon, lamps o’ villages. They 
come out after dimsy like the stars up over, and they look 
the same, soft and quiet and twinkling, but I knaw they 
bain’t the same. I’ve heard tell how some one looks 
down by the light o’ the lamps up over, but those down 
under don’t look up by the light o’ their lamps. They don’t 
look up to the roof o’ Cawsand, and that be only a little 
way. Most of ’em don’t look higher than six foot; some 
not so much; some never seem to tak’ their eyes off the 
ground all their lives. 

“ Please to sit down. There bain’t no hurry if ’tis 
getting dimsy, vor yew knaw the way out o’ the house. 
Sit down on this long stone o’ mine and I’ll tell ye a 
thing or two avore yew goes down to the lamps. I’ve 
abin here a time, vor I’m granite, and there be nothing 
stronger than me; I’ve abin here always, I can’t mind 
the time when I wasn’t here, and I’ll bide to the end if 
there be an end. But I bain’t the only one. There be 
two others on the roof wi’ me, and I’ve watched ’em vor 
thousands and millions o’ years, and I be still watching 
’em, and I’ll gq on to the end. One of ’em be strong, the 
other weak; and the strong one ha’ fought agin the weak 
one all these millions o’ years without beating it, without 
making it weaker, without driving a scrap of it away. 

“ Look about ye, traveller. I call ye traveller because 
yew can move abroad and I ha’ got to bide. What du’ye 
see? What du’ye hear? They’m my two companions, 
as old as me, the weak one and the strong, the one silent 
and visible, the other noisy and invisible, the two ever- 
lasting fighters — the Heather and the Wind. 

“ Nothing else, traveller, ’cept the lichens; just me and 
the heather and the wind. They’ve given us the roof and 
us holds on. ’Tis no use me asking why the heather 
grows in the wind ’cause yew don’t knaw. The wind 
beats the fern, the wind beats the vuzz; but it can’t beat 
the heather though it has tried vor millions o’ years. The 
little pink flowers laugh at the wind same as I du. ‘ Blow 
your hardest,’ it ses — and even yew, traveller, can’t guess 


4 


Heather 


how the wind comes on winter nights across the roof — 

‘ yew can’t beat me.’ And that’s what I ha’ been saying 
all these millions o’ years ’cause I’m granite, but I can’t 
understand how ’tis them little flowers be as strong as me. 

“ Traveller, I want to tell ye that nothing ever changes. 
The wind be the same as it always has been ; sometimes 
soft, sometimes fierce, but the same wind. I be granite 
just as I was millions o’ years ago; sometimes a lot o’ 
lichen on me, sometimes a little, but I’m the same granite. 
Times there’s a plenty o’ flowers on the heather, times 
there’s none; but ’tis the same heather. There’s nought 
else on the roc^ ’cept a few volk, and they’m the same 
volk as what lived once on the sides o’ the house, different 
clothes on ’em, different words in their mouths, but the 
same volk. The man they buried here was more lusty than 
yew, traveller, but his face was the same as yours. Seems 
to me as if he’d just stepped out to rest a bit avore going 
down the side to find his goats. 

“ A year be a goodish bit o’ time to yew, traveller, and 
twenty years be what yew call a generation. Time be 
nought to me and the heather and the wind. Us came 
wi’ the light and will go wi’ ’en. A thousand years, what 
lifts a few specks o’ dust off me, rubs the world clean o’ 
volk like yew ten times; and as vor a million yew can’t 
fancy it. But a million years ago I was here on the top 
o’ the roof, and the wind was tearing the heather same as 
it du now. What’s the meaning of all those years o’ wind, 
traveller? I don’t knaw, and the heather don’t knaw — 
there’s nought else but the lichens — but mebbe the wind 
knaws if ’twould fell. The wind has been noisy upon the 
roof for ever, but I don’t knaw yet what it tells. 

“ Bide a bit, traveller ! I reckon yew knaws more than 
me, though yew warn’t here yesterday and will be gone 
avore morning. My days be what yew calls ages. Per- 
haps yew can tell me why the wind fights wi’ the heather; 
why the heather don’t give it up and go; why it grows 
better on the roof than anywhere else — seems to me to 
live on the wind — though nothing else can live here, ’cept 
a bit o’ starved grass and corpsy lichen. Can ye tell me 
if the wind be sent to tear the heather, or be the heather 
sent to bear the wind? Du the wind hate the heather? 
I’ve seen ’en tear the blossoms off and whirl ’em along 


About the Little House on the Roof 5 

the roof and into nowhere. Be it all part of a game what 
bain’t going to end? And last of all, traveller, perhaps 
yew can tell me which o’ the folks started it all, who built 
this house o’ Cosdon, and put me into the roof, and 
planted the heather and sent the wind? Wun’t ye tell 
me? Then I reckon yew’m a poor thing,” said the little 
house, with the contempt of eternal things for a mere 
ephemeral. “Yew knaws no more than a lump of poor 
old Dartmoor granite, what can’t move abroad, and ain’t 
got your eyes and ears, your mind and brain. Sitting wi’ 
your head between your hands as though yew was mazed ! 
Go your ways, traveller. Go down under to the villages 
and the stars — lamps yew call ’em — and look up like them 
what live there, some of ’em six foot, some of ’em two. 
Vor yew’m only a vule if yew can’t answer a bit o’ granite 
on the roof. Bide a bit ! Don’t ye want to scratch on 
me wi’ your knife?” 

When a grave becomes insulting it is time to leave 
it. Besides, the evening wind on the roof comes cold and 
storm-haunted ; and the lights, when they can be seen at 
all, seem a long voyage away. The stone chest, kistvaen, 
House of Cosdon, whichever name suits, had made its 
appeal and was to be left unanswered. It is not easy to 
reply to that uncomfortable “Stay, traveller!” of the 
tomb. Nobody wants to linger or to reply. We want to 
go on, out of the wind, away from the cold and damp, 
towards the lighted windows and the warmth. The little 
house could not understand what the wind meant by beat- 
ing upon the heather, and being only rough granite it 
could hardly be expected to talk wisely. It could only 
ask hard questions like a child. For it is an empty- 
bodied thing, and in the place once occupied by bones the 
wind has whirled its refuse, scraps of peat and heather, 
sodden grass and sheep-dung; and its sides are well- 
polished by the rain. It is good to be there, not to think 
of graves and breed a company of melancholy devils, but 
to imagine oneself back, if not at the beginning of things, 
at least as far into the first days as imagination can con- 
trive. For one has only to breathe that air which has 
never been polluted; to feel the sun shining from that 
wonderful row of houses above, the doors of which cannot 
be unlocked although astronomers are always peeping over 


6 


Heather 


the fence and science is blotting out the word impossible; 
to look down upon the granite and heather; and at last 
to know there has been no change since the mastodon 
dragged his carcase there, since hairy man danced for the 
joy of life there, since fire was born and the first beacon 
blazed there. You may stand and scoff at history, and 
rank it with the initials scratched upon the granite. A 
million years in the life of the heather are but as yesterday 
in spite of the wind which never rests. 

Still the triumph is with tKe ephemerals who come, 
struggle, and die in less than a single day of geological 
time. Man is the master of eternal things, not in his 
flesh and bones, nor in his interminable antics, but in his 
mind. At both ends of creation you find the man, at the 
lower end among snakes, spiders and swine, in filth to the 
eyes; at the higher end alone, unapproachable, his head 
almost in the sun. It is the mind which speaks of the 
past and insists on a future. There is something on the 
roof besides the eternal granite and heather; there is the 
wind which beats upon them without ceasing, the strong 
invisible thing which comes from somewhere and passes 
on, just as the strong invisible thing called mind beats 
through the bodies of men from somewhere and passes 
on. Mind is the most eternal of all things, beginning 
with a mighty miracle and having no end, linking man, 
not with the eternal things of his surroundings, but with 
the unfathomable greatness and eternity of the origin of 
life. 

Can that mind go back beyond the granite and heather, 
can it learn, not by the bone in the rock or the fossil in 
the coal, but by its own power of recording facts, by its 
own memory? Can it go back in memory to the ages 
before men, existing as it were in anticipation of his 
coming? It is a question which has silence for an answer. 
Yet the Eastern story-teller speaks of the roc, the gigantic 
bird which could snatch up a man in its talons ; and in 
the fiction, and even in the sacred and secular beliefs, of 
the dark ages the dragon is everywhere a familiar figure 
in both literature and art. Eastern story-teller knew as 
much about geology as the mediaeval monk, and that was 
nothing. Yet the roc existed in the form of the dinornis, 
whose bones greatly exceeded those of the largest horse, 


About the Little House on the Roof 7 

whose normal height was twelve feet, whose tridactyl 
footprint measured eighteen inches in length; and the 
flying dragon existed in the pterodactyl, with the jaws and 
teeth of a crocodile, body and tail of a mammal, and bat- 
like wings having a spread of nearly thirty feet. How 
were these monsters guessed at by the ancients if they 
were not suggested by the voice of tradition? The mind 
creates nothing ; it can only discover and remember. The 
poor little ape shivering with fear in a world of fearful 
reptiles would hardly forget dinornis and pterodactyl since 
it spent its wretched life hiding from them ; and when the 
triumph of the mammals came, and evolution brought at 
length some semblance of humanity to the ape, it would 
still remember — or rather would be unable to forget — the 
horror of its struggle to survive amid the great dragons 
of the air. The wonderful mind which had been denied 
to the age of vegetation, and to the age of reptiles, was 
no doubt doing its work ; and the rude forms of primitive 
men might have retained within them the tradition of that 
terrible fight for existence; and so memory would be 
passed on unconsciously from one ape to another until 
civilization dawned. It would not be a triumph too great 
for the chief wonder of creation; as the shadow going 
before the body there is the mind going before the man. 

We might have answered the little house as the wind 
beats upon it, and in the same manner; but as it cannot 
understand the wind it would not have understood us. 
We could have answered one of its questions, not well, in 
some doubt, but still we could have told it something. 
We could have told it that the wind is upon all of us 
without ceasing, tearing at us as it torments the heather 
on the roof ; and like the heather we resist it with success. 
The wind cannot beat us. We perform the acts of our 
lives and defy it, and we place our children in its blast. 
It tears us up, and whirls us off apparently into nowhere 
like so much heather blossom, but still we win, because of 
the love of life and the love of our own. We could give 
it up and extinguish ourselves, through not breeding 
children, or through destroying all that are born by 
universal agreement, but we refuse to give way. On the 
other questions we are silent. Is the wind sent to tear 
us or are we sent to bear the wind? Does the wind hate 


8 


Heather 


US? The mind does nothing- for us there. No memory 
comes down from the age of colossal bird and flying 
dragon ; no tradition has been conveyed by that germ of 
mind in the ape’s shivering body of any Creative Being 
moving among the horrors of that world ; and without 
memory and tradition we are as the granite is. . . . 

The House of Cosdon and the roof are far behind and 
in the clouds. We are going down now, through the 
heather, still in the wind, towards the lights and the 
villages and the people who cause the lights. 


CHAPTER I 


ABOUT PATIENTS 

Along a windy passage trotted a small boy, sniffing at 
a door numbered four, whining at number three, scratch- 
ing at number two; and at number one, which made the 
end of the passage, he put up his head and howled the 
house down. By the manner of his conversation he pro- 
claimed himself a dog, by his appearance he was a fox- 
terrier and a gentleman, and the name of Tobias was 
marked upon his collar. He was a little watchman going 
his rounds, saying after his own manner, “ Seven o’clock, 
and time for children to come out and play.” 

Number one door opened and a rather nice-looking girl 
peeped out. She wore a dressing-gown, her dark hair 
was tumbling, her hands and face were tanned a fine red 
clay colour; and the name upon her collar was Berenice 
Calladine. 

” Hello, my lovely!” said she, while little dog Tobias 
lifted up his voice and grinned tumultuously. ” Want a 
game, do you? Come along, only don’t make a noise, or 
I shall be sacked. I’ve had such a day, my pet,” she 
laughed, shutting the door and rolling Tobias upon her 
bed. ” I’ve broken all the laws. Late getting up this 
morning, which meant one black mark, and went too far, 
was found out, and got a lecture. This afternoon I left 
unwalked that walk I ought to have done, and climbed 
that tor I was distinctly told I was not to climb, con- 
sequently there is supposed to be no health in me. When 
I got back I had a temperature, and was sentenced to 
remain in my own cell and repent in solitude and cigarette- 
ashes. And there’s a new boy, Tobias. I want to see 
what he’s like.” 


9 


lO 


Heather 


Tobias was understood to say that he had witnessed 
the arrival of the new boy and entertained no very high 
opinion of him, as he had taken his ball and placed it with 
great precision at the stranger’s feet, in order to test his 
throwing powers, and the new boy had ignored it and 
him altogether. 

“ I expect be wants his mummy,” said the young lady. 
” He’s feeling blue, Tobias. Every one feels awful at 
first. I cried lots, swamped my bed, and it was dreadful 
cold and my tears froze, and I thought I was going to die 
every minute. I’ve been told to go to bed and I don’t 
seem to be doing it. Such a beautiful evening, and I feel 
quite well. I think I’ll stay up a little longer. Little 
stupid, you were nearly out of the window. Oh, I see,” 
she murmured. ” That’s your ball on the grass.” 

The expression window was something of an euphemism, 
as there wasn’t one. The entire house was in the same 
unfinished condition, and fresh heather-scented air 
careered freely through passages and rooms. It was 
pleasant enough at that time of year, but somewhat brutal 
in winter when the temperature was below freezing-point 
and snow came drifting upon the floor. The girl’s bed 
was close beside the open space which, in a less savage 
abode, would have been occupied by a window with its 
usual accompaniments of blinds and curtains, and a piece 
of wire was stretched across to prevent her from rolling 
out into the garden while she slept. Below was a rough 
lawn dotted over with lounge chairs which were then 
unoccupied ; and upon the lawn reposed a golf-ball gnawed 
into an elliptical shape by the dog’s sharp teeth. 

‘‘ I wonder if I should be caught,” murmured Berenice, 
longing for the ball which Tobias flatly declined to go for 
unless she came too. ” I shan’t be happy till I get it, 
and I’ve been so bad all day I may as well end badly and 
start fresh and good to-morrow. We’ll chance it. Come 
along, Tobias.” 

She slipped out, tiptoed down the stairs, reached the 
grass safely and picked up the ball, an act which caused 
Tobias to jump and squeak. A cough reached her ears, 
and she looked up to see at one of the open spaces above 
a fat and comic head nodding furiously and making danger 
signals with its eyes and lips. 


About Patients 


II 


“ It’s all right, Mr. Gumm. He’s been and gone,” said 
she ; but at that moment the gate clicked, and she saw to 
her horror the tyrant of that little state strolling up the 
path slapping the palm of his left hand with the rubber 
tubes of a stethoscope. ” Heaven save me,” Berenice 
murmured. “I’m caught again.” 

” I told you to remain in your room, Miss Calladine,” 
said a cold voice. 

” It’s such a lovely evening. We don’t get too many 
of them,” protested the culprit, standing in a graceful 
posture of resignation, pushing the hair from her eyes. 

” And I told you to go to bed.” 

” I was going, but I looked out and saw this ball lying 
on the grass, and it worried me so I had to come down 
and pick it up. I did try to resist temptation, but it 
wouldn’t be resisted. I’ll be good to-morrow,” she 
promised, with a smile which meant she would behave in 
exactly the same way. 

The doctor came forward, took the ball from her in a 
paternal way, and threw it among the rhododendrons, 
while Tobias plunged merrily after it. 

” I shall have to take the dog away if the patients 
throw things for him,” he said. 

“Take Tobias away!” cried the girl indignantly. 
” Then I should go, and the others would go, and you 
would be left weeping for your children ” 

” Now run away to bed. I can’t have you about with 
a temperature.” 

” It was only climbing up the mountains, and doing 
those things which I ought not to have done,” she said. 

” Which you are rather addicted to. Don’t get up 
to-morrow until I have been, as I want to run over you.” 

” Not in those big boots, I hope,” said the girl; and 
then ran off and watched the tyrant’s departure from an 
up-stairs passage. ” Now he’s gone to his dinner, and 
can’t bother me again. I’ll go to bed presently, but I 
must pay some calls first.” 

She knocked at a door numbered five, entered, and dis- 
covered a small and pretty maiden propped up in bed, 
nibbling dejectedly at a large slice of bread and butter. 

” Well, Miss Shazell, how are we this evening?” said 
Berenice, mimicking the doctor’s voice and manner. 


12 


Heather 


“ Miserable,” came the answer. ” But you mustn’t 
come in. There will be such a row if you’re caught.” 

” Doctor has lectured me and gone. The matron is in 
the kitchen eating bread and honey, so we are quite safe. 
I’ve been in rows all day, and now I’m supposed to be 
slapped and put to bed. I’m going to be thumped to- 
morrow.” 

” I was done this morning.” 

” What did he say?” 

“I’m better, ever so much — if he really means it. But 
he’s going to walk me soon, and I’ve stuck on four pounds 
this week.” 

” Then what are you miserable about, if you’re getting 
better and plastering on fat in such a piggish fashion?” 

” I want my mother,” cried the poor little girl. 

“That’s because you are a silly baby,” said Berenice 
severely. “ If your mother was allowed here she would 
only kill you. She would never have the heart to see her 
girl all wet with the dews of heaven, like the man who did 
open-air treatment in the Bible. If they hadn’t kept you 
at home, and coddled you so long, you wouldn’t be in 
bed now.” 

“ I hate the place and the people,” moaned Winnie. 

“ That’s silly too. You haven’t seen the people, and you 
mustn’t hate a place which is saving your life. It’s jolly 
good fun when you get a bit fit. And you must expect 
mixed biscuits in a sanatorium. How splendid and fat 
you’re getting, Winnie ! You’re nearly ready for market. 
What meal are you devouring now?” 

“ Tea,” said tearful Winnie. “ I finished breakfast 
just before doctor came at noon, and I got through lunch 
by four, and now it’s dinner-time and I shan’t finish that 
till two o’clock to-morrow morning. I’m always stuffing, 
but the milk is the worst. It’s awful to lie here and pour 
milk into myself all day.” 

“ Just put your head back and let it run down,” laughed 
Berenice. 

“ But it makes me so sick.” 

“ Don’t let it. When I feel that stage approaching I 
clench my hands and teeth and declare I won’t give way, 
and I don’t. I haven’t been sick since the first two weeks. 
Some people don’t try to fight against it. Old Budge is 


About Patients 


13 

always going out to admire the flowers, but she is a pig, 
and loads herself like a coal-van.” 

” Don’t,” pleaded Winnie. “You mustn’t stay, 
Berenice. I do like seeing you, but I am supposed not to 
speak to any one. Look at all this bread and butter ! 
My meals run into each other so, and I can’t heave the 
lot out of the window or they’d see it.” 

“ Poor little girl,” said Berenice. “ They give you 
rather a rough time, and you deserve a rest if you have 
put on four pounds.” She picked up the plate of bread 
and butter. “ I’ll hide the stuff in my room and throw it 
away to-morrow,” she said. 

“ That’s so wicked,” said Winnie. 

“ My dear, we can’t always be good, not even In a sana- 
torium. Besides, tea is not a compulsory meal for most of 
us. Bye-bye, baby. Don’t cough to-night, or I’ll come in 
and smack you. ” 

Berenice went off, concealed the bread and butter, then 
banged at another door, and was received this time with 
enthusiasm. Number six was another maiden, on the 
wrong side of forty, although she couldn’t remember it. 
Arabella Budge was not beautiful though she said she 
was good, but people doubted it. She was fond of telling 
small selfish untruths, such as that her name was Ella — 
the surname didn’t matter, as she intended to change that 
when the man with a higher aim than her bank-account 
came along — and she couldn’t remember anything that 
had happened twenty years back, and she denied using 
a razor, although Berenice had caught her once with a 
lathered face, which. Miss Budge declared, was for the 
sake of her complexion. The lady also affirmed she was 
mortally afflicted, which was obviously untrue, as serious 
cases were not admitted to the sanatorium, and she 
explained her condition by the usual statement that people 
of sanctity could hardly expect to attain longevity. Miss 
Budge had excited some interest in the medical world, as 
she had gained twenty-one pounds during the first week 
under treatment. “Not bad for a girl,” she expressed 
it. “ Pigs simply nowhere,” according to Berenice. 

“ My dear. I’ve had such a lovely dream,” cried Miss 
Budge. “ It’s not often I go to sleep in the rest hour, 
but I did this evening, and I thought three men came in, 


Heather 


14 

and each claimed to be my long-lost husband. Wasn’t 
that queer?” 

” If you call bigamy a joke I suppose it was. Now I 
know the sort of life you have been leading,” said 
Berenice. 

” And then in came the real rude doctor without knock- 
ing as usual, with his, ‘ What’s your temperature?’ I 
shall throw my boot at his head one of these days.” 

” I should think your temperature was pretty high with 
such a lot of husbands,” said Berenice. ” Have you seen 
the new boy? I heard the carriage drive up.” 

” Just a glimpse as he walked up the path. Tall, thin, 
dark, and he turns his toes in. I coughed, but he didn’t 
look up.” 

” A gentleman?” 

” Must be. Doctor says he’s a Balliol scholar. I sup- 
pose the first thing he will do is to fall in love with you, 
and I shall have to play gooseberry until you throw him 
down and trample on him, and then I can use the 
remains,” said Miss Budge. 

‘‘ Wait till Winnie Shazell gets about. I shall have to 
play gooseberry then.” 

” Is she really pretty? I can’t see her as she’s always 
in bed, and I don’t dare go into other rooms like you do. 
I submit to discipline,” said Miss Budge, with the air of 
a Christian martyr. 

” She is a sweet, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired thing, with 
dimples and a most delicious nose. I expect I admire her 
because she is so unlike me,” said Berenice. 

‘‘There go the Twins!” exclaimed Miss Budge, as a 
noise came from the stairs suggestive of furniture shifting. 
‘‘ It must be stuffing-time. Let’s go down and bully the 
new boy.” 

‘‘ I can’t. I’m supposed to be in bed getting a tem- 
perature down.” 

‘‘ And here’s the tyrant,” sniggered Miss Budge, who 
was gazing out of the window. 

Berenice rushed to her room and began to tear off her 
clothes. Hearing the dreaded step on the stairs she flung 
Tobias off the bed, jumped in half-dressed, pulled the 
sheets over her, and wondered if the explanation that she 
had felt so faint she couldn’t finish undressing would be 


About Patients 


15 

of any use. However, the doctor did not come in. He 
merely asked, “ Are you in bed. Miss Calladine?” as he 
passed ; and Berenice answered in an exceedingly surprised 
and ^injured voice, “ Oh yes, doctor.” 

The irrepressible girl could not remain quiet for long. 
She finished disrobing, then tumbled into bed, and leaned 
out of the window with a light wrapper about her shoul- 
ders for the sake of propriety, watching the Twins who 
were disporting themselves in elephantine fashion upon 
the lawn. They were middle-aged men, humorous in 
their way, which was always vulgar, generally grotesque, 
and usually quarrelling like a couple of children. One was 
James Gumm, the other Alfred Mudd; each was father of 
a family; Gumm was a commercial traveller, while Mudd 
was interested in the liquor trade. Berenice was right 
when she said that all sorts met in a sanatorium. 

” Mr. Gumm,” called the girl. ” Please throw me up 
that ball.” She saw it upon the grass where Tobias had 
left it after reclaiming it from the rhododendrons. 

The Twins ceased their preposterous gambols when they 
heard the voice, and raised their big, bladder-like heads 
towards the window. 

” ’Ullo ! are you in bed, my pretty?” cried Gumm, 
though it was obvious enough, as Berenice, bed and all, 
were visible from the lawn. 

” Silly blight,” howled Mudd. ” Can’t you see she’s 
cooking pork-chops for your supper?” 

” I want that ball, please,” said the girl sternly. 

“ Have you said your prayers, my dear? Have you 
prayed for James Gumm and other sick persons?” asked 
that gentleman, with much solicitude. 

” Shut your stoke-hole, and give the poor girl her toy. 
Give it here, fathead,” cried Mudd. “You can’t chuck.” 

They rolled together on the ball like a couple of fat 
babies, Gumm screaming, ” If you chuck it you’ll bust 
your tin lungs;” while the other’s reply was so uncom- 
plimentary that Berenice decided she had not heard it. 

The ball reached the girl’s bed at last, and she and 
Tobias began to play, which was against the rules, but 
she didn’t mind that; while Mudd placed himself in what 
he imagined was a devotional attitude, and with uplifted 
eyes declaimed — 


i6 


Heather 


“ I wish I wasn’t married, Jim.” 

“So does your wife,” replied Gumm ; and then lum- 
bered off, pursued by Mudd, until they nearly tumbled 
over Miss Budge, who was sitting on the other side of 
the rhododendrons extracting romance out of a Dartmoor 
sunset. 

A bell rang and the patients took their places at the 
dinner-table. It was not a depressed party by any means ; 
on the contrary, a more cheerful lot of beings could not 
easily have been found. They were as irresponsible as 
so many school-children, and nobody looking in upon them 
would have guessed they were afflicted with a disease 
which yields readily enough to Nature and its wind. They 
were there to imitate as far as possible animals in the 
matter of feeding and savages in the way of living. The 
mind had to be forgotten, the intellect was the only thing 
to be starved ; everything was to be sacrificed to the gross 
requirements of the body. 

The sanatorium was a small one, not accommodating 
more than eight patients at a time. In addition to those 
already mentioned, and the new-comer who brought the 
total up to seven, was a silent young curate named Sill, 
who had to suffer a good deal, partly from an inability to 
retain large quantities of food, partly from the irreverence 
of the others. At the commencement of the meal two chairs 
were unoccupied, and Gumm, who had long ago acquired 
the art of eating and conversing at the same time, was 
soon commenting upon this fact. 

” The queen of my ’eart is put to bed,” he said, while 
sucking a hot potato. ” She’s been bringing this respect- 
able establishment into discredit again.” 

” How do you know? You weren’t with her,” said 
Mudd. The Twins generally had the conversation to 
themselves, none of the others having much chance. 

‘‘ Doctor told me, Bristol bloater,” replied Gumm in his 
courtly style. ” She was seen out with a carroty- ’eaded 
soldier, behaving shameful, his arm round her half-guinea 
seventeen-and-a-quarter inch lace-me-tight ” 

” She doesn’t wear one,” Miss Budge interrupted. “ I 
don’t either. It’s not allowed. And I’m sure her waist 
is twenty-five inches.” 

” That shows my innocence,” 


went on Gumm. 


About Patients 1 7 

“ Respectable married men don’t understand ladies’ 
clothes like soldiers and parsons.” 

” If you are referring to me, Mr. Gumm ” began the 

young clergyman, but he was given no mercy by the 
booming commercial. 

” Don’t you make excuses, Mr. Sill. Soldiers and 
parsons are in the same bag when it comes to women, 
only soldiers go for the pretty ones and parsons for the 
rich ones. That’s where their superior education comes in. 
If I had my time over again I’d start as a soldier, and then 
I’d turn parson. If you’re going to be ill, Alfred Mudd, 
I hope you’ll go into the garden and get it over like a 
gentleman. Do you fancy yourself an inebriate, Mr. Sill?” 

” A celibate,” corrected the shocked young curate. 
” Well, I am.” 

“Then you’re not going to do your duty to the 
country^” said Mudd. 

” Just what I tell him,” cried Miss Budge. 

” You’ll grow out of it,” prophesied Gumm. “ Wait 
till some pretty little girl helps you to decorate the font 
on Christmas Eve, and invites you to play a game of I 
touched last.” 

” I told him that too,” said the lady. ” At least some- 
thing like it.” 

The curate smiled and said nothing. He was a very 
young man and the bacillus of mediaevalism had bitten 
him. 

” Our little bit of youth and beauty was fair copped 
with the red-’eaded sergeant,” Gumm went on, sprawling 
over the table to reach a tomato which Mudd grabbed for 
at the same time and just lost. ” When she got back 
doctor gave her the choice between the sack and a spank- 
ing. ‘ Must keep the place respectable,’ he told her, 

‘ I’ve got little Jimmy Gumm to think of.’ ” 

“Listen to him,” cried the publican. “Travels in 
whisky, and drinking milk now like a baby at his mother’s 
knee. ” 

“ Mammy’s what?” asked Gumm. “ We all know 

about mother’s knee and slipper, but ” 

“That will do, Mr. Gumm,” nervously interrupted the 
matron who was carving meat at a side-table. “ Please 
go on with your food.” 

2 


i8 


Heather 


“ Right-o, Auntie. I was only impressing upon the 
company that we can’t be too careful about our morals, 
when the gentleman opposite puts his word in. Pretty 
youth he is at home. Stands all day between a beer- 
engine and a pile o’ glasses, and sells arsenic and water 
at twopence a time. Ain’t it true now about our pretty 
one? Speak the truth. Auntie. Didn’t she choose the 
spanking, and didn’t you hold her down while doctor used 
the strap off her box?” 

” Do be quiet,” cried the worried matron, while at the 
same moment Sill rose from the table with abruptness 
and hurried out into the garden. 

” For what he’s been and received he’s going to be truly 
wasteful,” observed Mudd. 

“Take Miss Shazell’s dinner up to her room before 
it gets cold,” called the matron to the ever-bustling 
servant. 

” With her little Jimmy’s love,” added Gumm. 

” If she wants feeding with a spoon I’ll be there,” 
shouted Mudd. 

” Gentlemen, you must behave if you please,” begged 
the matron, shaking her carving-knife at them, which 
caused the publican to sing ” Three blind mice,” while 
Gumm’s husky voice remarked, ” No need for the plural. 
Auntie dear. There’s only one gentleman here, now 
parson has gone to play among the buttercups.” 

” Well, here’s another,” said Miss Budge in her most 
amiable voice, as a new figure crept awkwardly into the 
room and produced the silence which is usual when a 
stranger enters. He was quite young, timid, and a trifle 
uncouth. His rather long hair seemed to have been left 
unbrushed, his clothes had a curious appearance of being 
disarranged ; he looked indeed, a-s Mudd subsequently 
expressed it, as if he had been dragged through a furze- 
bush. He stood for the moment near the table and made 
a singularly awkward bow to his future companions. 

“This is Mr. Halfacre,” said the matron by way of 
formal introduction. ” Will you sit here, please, next to 
Miss Budge?” 

” Delighted,” exclaimed, not the new-comer, but the 
lady; while the Twins nodded their distended cheeks and 
champing jaws at him, and then made outward and visible 


About Patients 


19 

grimaces at each other to signify that the latest arrival 
was not of their kind. 

“ I expect you are tired?” remarked Miss Budge, con- 
tracting her space at the table with much detail. 

“Not unreasonably, considering I have made a long 
journey in a weak state of health,” came the answer, 
which made the lady stare and the Twins choke. The new 
boy’s voice was harsh and grating, and his manners were 
atrocious. He ought to have known that it was not 
etiquette to refer publicly to his health, because nobody 
there had really come for their health. They were simply 
serving a sort of imprisonment for having lived carelessly 
in the past. Then his pedantic manner was discouraging. 
Miss Budge found herself examining him with much in- 
terest. Being a scholar, the young man was presumably 
a gentleman in spite of his very earthy name. Miss Budge 
was an ordinary middle-class lady of a foolish kind, half- 
educated merely because she had forgotten all that she 
had been taught and had fed her mind for years upon 
nothing better than stories with a strong love-interest. 
Yet as a lady she discovered a sort of harsh inflection 
in the stranger’s voice which suggested that his 
fellow-scholars might not have mixed with him for 
reasons apart from his pedantry. “ Berenice will take 
the starch out of him,” she thought; but at that moment 
young Halfacre turned and gazed along the table in a 
helpless way. He was only looking for salt, which Miss 
Budge did not pass at once, partly because she was 
annoyed at what seemed to her his want of courtesy, 
chiefly because she saw his eyes and they reminded her of 
that curious something which makes the rabbit nerveless 
when it sees the stoat. 

“ We’re all of us in an interesting condition,” remarked 
Gumm. “ Brought on in my case by long hours of 
unremitted labour. In his case,” pointing to Mudd with a 
fork whereon a large piece of bull’s flesh was impaled, 
“ by a life of ease and luxury. More meat, please. Auntie. 
Where’s Tobias to eat the gristle?” 

“ He never leaves Miss Calladine unless he has to,” 
answered Miss Budge, not sorry to turn her attention 
from the silent Halfacre. 

“ In the little matter of running after every pretty girl. 


20 Heather 

that dog very much resembles my respected friend Alfred 
Mudd.” 

“ And in the little matter of scratching himself ” 

began the publican. 

“ That will do, Mr. Mudd,” said the poor matron firmly, 
while Miss Budge tittered, and the new man muttered 
something inaudible which was possibly classical and 
presumably uncomplimentary ; but nobody attended to him, 
for just then Sill entered and made delicately for his seat, 
to be greeted by the commercial in 9. concerned fashion, 

“ I am afraid you must be dreadfully hungry, your 
reverence. ” 

“ Sitting on the grass counting daisies is appetising. 
I’ve tried it,” remarked Mudd. 

‘‘How you do tease the poor man!” tittered Miss 
Budge. 

‘‘ The truth of the matter is he goes out on the lawn to 
look up and see the girls in bed,” went on Gumm. 

‘‘ The truth of the matter is that Miss Calladine is 
giving her dinner to Tobias,” said the curate pleasantly. 

‘‘ Oh, you sneak,” cried Miss Budge. 

“ Didn’t I say he’d been looking up there?” said 
Gumm. 

‘‘ I shall tell doctor about her,” threatened the matron, 
although every one knew she wouldn’t. ‘‘ Let me give 
you some more meat, Mr. Sill.” 

‘‘ Don’t put it like that. Auntie. Give it him, hot and 
savoury meat such as his soul hateth. We’ll see that he 
eats it, though we won’t guarantee he keeps it,” said 
Mudd. 

Miss Budge was somewhat astonished to think that her 
neighbour was laughing at this vulgarity ; but her second 
and more correct impression was that he was trying to 
refrain from doing exactly the opposite. Not that it was 
anything surprising, as he was probably very weak, and 
the first day in a sanatorium brings tears from men as 
well as from women. But young Haffacre had looked 
superior to that sort of thing. 

The next morning the doctor came to visit his little 
colony in a whirling Dartmoor mist. He examined the 
new-comer and sentenced him to a day in bed. He thumped 
Berenice, found everything satisfactory, and told her to 


About Patients 


21 


go to St. Michael’s Ford, which pleased the girl, as it 
was her favourite walk. “ And Tobias likes it too,” she 
said. He went on to Miss Budge’s room, pushed the door 
open, found the lady half-dressed, and made Berenice 
scream with laughter when she overhead his remark, ” All 
right. Miss Budge, I’m not bashful,” and the lady’s 
answer, ” I dare say you’re not, but I am.” Miss Budge 
was told to go to Downacombe, and not stay gossiping 
with Mr. Leigh the rector. The Twins were visited and 
sent exactly opposite directions for their perambulation, 
although they would probably manage to meet, and hide 
among the rocks to smoke cigarettes like wicked school- 
boys. Last of all the doctor went to Winnie Shazell, and 
found her so much brighter and better that he said she 
might get up, go out for half-an-hour, and walk very slowly 
half-way along the road towards Wheal Dream. She was 
to sit down and rest at least twice on that short journey, 
and she was straitly charged not to speak a word to 
any one. 

So Winnie got out at last and walked very tremulously 
upon the rough moorland track between the sanatorium 
and Wheal Dream ; while Berenice at the same time was 
swinging along the side of the cleave with Tobias at her 
short skirts, making for the path which leads down to the 
ford which lies on the east side of St. Michael’s chapel of 
Halstock. 


CHAPTER II 


ABOUT WHEAL DREAM 

Wherever we go are tales ; those that make history 
and those that make dreams. Some sort of story seems 
to be connected with every outstanding rock, every path 
and landmark, every cliff that hangs over the sea, and 
every cave half under it. Here some fool of a giant had 
his head hewn off by a small man who made giant-killing 
a profession; there some maid jumped into space because 
her young man was not constant and she hadn’t the sense 
to get somebody else. They are nearly all ghastly stories ; 
every peak has its own tragedy, each little copse of fir- 
trees its murder. Pretty stories are forgotten somehow, 
or when they are remembered have to put up with the 
title of fairy-tale. The tragedies really did happen, but 
the comedies are pure invention. Folk are not to be 
thrilled with a tale, unless it be highly coloured, or has 
a certain amount of wild and bloody complications called 
a plot. They want the real thing, the impossible story, 
just because their own lives are colourless ; they crave for 
a bit of romance between their own dull lines of common- 
place, and they prefer it red; it stimulates them that way, 
and the horror never touches them because they are not 
called upon to face it. A very different thing it is when 
the horrible thing becomes real; when they stand near a 
lonely cottage on a winter’s afternoon, the sea mist 
around, the sea waves below, sea birds above, and know 
that if they open that door they will see in the gloom the 
real red thing of their favourite tales. The hero of 
romance would kick the door open with a supercilious 
foot and light a cigarette with unshaken hands. People in 
real life scream and run away. 

There was a tale connected with Wheal Dream, its 

22 


About Wheal Dream 


23 


ruins and its name; but not the sort of story which is 
remembered. Perhaps the mine had been opened very 
many years ago by some of the Jews who were driven 
into the world after the fall of their city; for a record 
exists to that effect, and your Israelite had always a nose 
to smell metal ; but the name of Wheal Dream must have 
been bestowed in Stannary times. What remains is only 
a stupid love-story, and the fragments are hardly worth 
collecting. There was a man, and he had no name 
apparently, and he lived nowhere, but he had ambitions, 
a fantastic mind, and a maiden. His ambition was to 
make a wife of the n;aiden, which would seem a simple 
matter in an age when the marriage laws were not strict, 
and in a country which was hopping with cheap friars, 
and when a damsel did not demand a palatial residence 
and the latest Gallic fashions; but possibly his fantastic 
mind stood in the way. Such a mind was a dangerous 
possession in those days. As for the maiden, she was 
socially above the poor spadiard, for that is all he was, 
a wretched labourer who wore a sheep-skin and lived in 
a pit, and had nothing but coarse food, and when he 
wanted water had to drink it out of his spade, and only 
differed from his fellows in his possession of ambition, a 
fantastic mind, and the maiden. For the girl loved him, 
which would be the impossible part of the story if she 
hadn’t been so feminine. She saw nothing presumptuous 
in the spadiard ’s love, although she dwelt in what then 
passed for a country residence, she could change her 
clothes when she got wet on the moor, and roast venison 
was served at her father’s table at least twice a week. 
And in spite of all this she loved the man with the fan- 
tastic mind who lived in the pit and did not even own a 
change of sheep-skins. It is a pity tradition does not 
remember her name. 

Even in those days men were not always what they 
appeared to be, and there were those who had only one 
bottle of wine in the house, which they couldn’t drink 
because it had to be kept for visitors. This little girl’s 
father might have been a very terrible personage out- 
wardly, possessing a suit of armour which had the advan- 
tage of not wearing out quickly or getting shabby at 
the knees, and he might have stalked among the rocks 


Heather 


24 

with a clanking as of milk-cans ; but for all that he was 
dreadfully short of tin, which sounds like a slang expres- 
sion but is not, for tin was the gold of those days and 
people reckoned in it, an ingot of white metal being then 
what a bank-note is now. The girl of the period was 
an article of traffic; she had her market price, and the 
highest bidder bought her, which is one of those simple 
old customs which never seems to, change. The daughter 
of the man in armour knew all about this custom, knew 
also that as she was pretty she was worth her weight 
in tin, and the man who brought that amount to her 
father could take her, parental good-will and benediction 
of holy Church included; therefore she suggested to the 
spadiard that he should give up being a labourer, show 
her he was a man, and strike out in business for himself 
and incidentally for her. The lover listened; he didn’t 
want fame, position, or a suit of armour, he only wanted 
the girl ; he returned to his pit, slept, and the fantastic 
mind did the rest. In a dream he saw the mine which 
the Jews had opened, and it seemed to him that he passed 
down the shaft and his eyes penetrated the rubbish and 
behind it was tin in abundance. There was sufficient to 
buy several girls. He awoke, took his spade, went to 
the wheal and began to dig. The evidence of the dream 
was true. Tin was there and the spadiard felt himself 
a man. 

The course of prosperity soon ran in a crooked fashion 
for the tinner. He was behaving in a high-handed way 
with the law as established by the body of the Stannary 
in the High Court of Crockern Tor; and those who acted 
so did not live long to boast of it. The bailiff of Lydford 
issued his tin-warrant, and the spadiard was hurried off 
to the castle on the hill and the dungeon which “ deserved 
no laughter ”; for the well-known expression of “ a living 
tomb ” was inspired by the sight of that dungeon together 
with the dreadful lines — 

“ To lie therein one night, ’tis guess’d 
’Twere better to be ston’d or press’d, 

Or hang’d ere you come hither.” 

As it was the custom of the Stannary authorities to 
murder a prisoner first and then sit in judgment on his 


About Wheal Dream 25 

body, to discover whether he deserved his fate or whether 
he ought to have been acquitted, it will be obvious that 
the tinner did not reach the hopeless side of the walls of 
Lydford, though tradition fails to mention how he 
managed to escape. Possibly his fantastic mind was of 
good service again, perhaps the maiden helped him, more 
probably a thick Dartmoor mist was his preserver. He 
got away and went back to Wheal Dream, where the girl 
visited him and brought him food ; while in the night 
he went on dreaming. The spirit of the place advised 
him to stay there and frighten passers by in the orthodox 
white-sheeted way which was very effectual in those days ; 
by groans and shrieks, and waving fiery brands at night, 
and knocking two old tin cans together, if such things 
were obtainable — there are plenty about the place in its 
present state of civilisation — and by behaving generally in 
the demented fashion which obtains among lost souls. 
These things he did assisted by the young lady, who very 
possibly supplied him with some of her own discarded 
white raiment in which he could flap about at night; and 
as a consequence every one took care to keep well away 
from the gorge of the mine, except a few priests who 
flocked there in gorgeous copes and broad daylight and 
deluged the place with holy water. It was all very good 
fun for the clergy, but a game of life or death for the 
tinner. 

At this point the story becomes so much patchwork, 
and we must take the historian’s usual privilege and invent 
a little. So we infer that the damsel went to her father 
and told him all about the wealth of tin hidden away in 
Wheal Dream and how impossible it was to mine because 
of the evil spirit guarding it ; and then she told him to 
go and see for himself, knowing well enough that as 
soon as he heard the first scream of the supposed demon 
his mail-clad knees would knock one against the other 
with a noise like an iron foundry. However he went, and 
the first thing he saw was this shockingly ungrammatical 
couplet written upon the rocks — 

“He who gives his daughter to me 
All my tin I’ll give to hee.” 

The avaricious old fellow didn’t worry about the 


26 


Heather 


grammar. He grasped the facts that the devil wanted his 
daughter and was prepared to give plenty of tin for her, 
and he naturally did not hesitate in closing with such an 
excellent bargain. So he sent for the parson in charge 
of St. Michael’s Chapel, and asked about the form of 
ceremony ordained for such unions. The clergyman, of 
course, was horrified and said he could have nothing to 
do with such a black business unless very liberal fees 
were forthcoming. This brought a reply from the gentle- 
man that he was temporarily embarrassed and a deadlock 
was reached, until the girl was questioned; and then it 
came out, with tears and great reluctance — for girls could 
dupe their parents even in the middle ages — how that ever 
since the mine had been haunted she had dreamed each 
night of a man clothed like a simple spadiard, who came 
to her and recited the same ungrammatical lines which her 
father had seen upon the rocks. She stated, moreover, 
being an artful maiden, that she hoped she would not 
have to marry the man, as she would much rather stay 
at home and polish father’s armour; and that naturally 
provoked the answer that she desired, namely she was 
a pert bit of baggage and would have to do as she was 
told ; while the parson went olf into a discourse about 
dreams and visions and the marvellous intervention of 
Providence until his eloquence was dammed with a crock 
of mulled ale. And the next day in walked the tinner 
with a glib story of having come direct from the Court 
of King Arthur, or some place equally remote and 
romantic, but unfortunately he had been unable to bring 
letters of introduction because he had no pockets to his 
sheepskin. He said further he was the owner of a rich 
and devil-haunted mine on Dartmoor; that nobody could 
exorcise the foul fiend but himself ; and lastly he had seen 
in a dream the fair vision of a maiden who was to be his 
wife and he was walking all over the country looking 
for her. The young lady entering that moment, accord- 
ing to arrangement, they recognised each other at once 
and fell into one another’s arms in the orthodox way. 
Nothing remained but to fish the parson from under the 
table where he too had been dreaming since finishing the 
crock; and when he had attended professionally to the 
young couple the impecunious gentleman hurried off to 


About Wheal Dream 


27 

the mine, which was haunted no longer and was found to 
contain a wealth of tin which exceeded all expectations. 
After that there was nothing more for them to do except 
to live happily ever afterwards. 

This story of Wheal Dream, like most of the old tradi- 
tions, crumbles before criticism. The simplicity of the 
country gentleman was somewhat inhuman, the careless- 
ness of the Court of Stannary rather too great. Further, 
it may be asked, how did the spadiard or his lass know 
how to write those lines upon the rock, and how could 
the father read them? The tale disregards dramatic 
unities and embraces many periods. Certain it is that 
the mine of Wheal Dream never contained tin, but copper ; 
the water there is coloured with it, and the damp sides 
of the old shaft are coated with its moss-like stain. But 
let no one ask for coherence, or even common-sense, in 
the pleasant old traditions of the moor. 

It is a separate hamlet now within the treeless forest’s 
gate, and as typical a bit of Dartmoor as exists. At 
first sight it consists of two houses, one a low, rambling 
structure which was once the home of miners, the other 
a squat, box-shaped building, whitewashed years ago, 
patches of the wash still showing, the whole place very 
crumbling and cracking, the remains of a glass-house 
leaning insecurely across its front showing a few jagged 
bits of glass rattling in the wind but for some reason never 
falling. Against, or rather into, this house is dove- 
tailed a tiny cottage of granite which has never been 
whitewashed and is to-day black with exposure, fronted 
by a quaint little court paved irregularly, here a flat slab, 
there a raised lump; every one stumbles when they walk 
across if they don’t know the place; and down a cleft in 
the steep side of the moor a tiny stream descends bustling 
through ferns, making the long fronds dance after heavy 
rain, and entering the court over a smooth slab of granite 
to plunge into an artificial rock-basin soft with mosses; 
and then it splashes under a culvert older than West- 
minster Abbey and goes down to Wheal Dream. 

The road across the gorge was made by the Court of 
Stannary and built up by spadiards in the days when 
labour was cheap. Those tinners knew how to work ; the 
family of Jerry had not then entered the building trade; 


28 


Heather 


that road has never been restored and does not need it. 
Cutting between the farmhouse and the cottage dove- 
tailed into it, separating them from the gorge where stand 
the gaunt ruins of the mine, it swings round sharply to 
pass the mine house perched at the extreme edge of the 
ravine, and then loses itself among the clatters of the high 
moor. Although corrugated iron has reached the place it 
is still beautiful; and the air is filled each day with the 
music of tumbling water. 

They were a queer lot at Wheal Dream and a small lot, 
for the population was only five — two drunkards, two 
ancients, and a gentleman. The gorge and the little 
enclosed fields or binhays above were still nominally owned 
by the Duchy of Cornwall, but the family of Petherick 
had squatted there from very early times, for in the 
accounts presented during the reign of Henry the Seventh 
appears the entry, “New rent of Wheal Dream, of 
William Petherick and Richard Redegripp, for two acres 
of waste inclosed, 3d.” The family of Redegripp had 
disappeared, or had become incorporated somehow like 
a defunct literary journal into that of the Pethericks ; 
who still held the property and continued to pay a “ new 
rent “ to the Duchy, a far more nominal rent than the 
threepence required under the ancient order ; but the 
Pethericks were not the legal owners of the property in 
spite of their squatter’s title, which could be proved to 
have existed for at least four hundred years ; and when 
George Brunacombe bought the old mine house from 
John Petherick for ;^i5o and a dozen bottles of whisky 
a letter came from the Duchy warning the new owner 
that he could be turned out at any time, which would 
have been a proceeding resembling the acts of the Court 
of Stannary, who were above every law but their own. 
Evidently the Pethericks had been lawless folk, for in the 
records of the Survey Court occurs the entry, “ Item they 
(the jurors) do present that William Petherick, by his owne 
confessyon, kild a stagge wth a pece or gun, nere a month 
since, about Halstock (wch is part in the fforest of Dart- 
moore and part in Venvill). ” The record does not state 
whether for this offence against the Prince he was “ pre- 
sented,’’ an expression which has nothing to do with 
what presented at Court means now, but might well stand 


About Wheal Dream 


29 

as the finest euphemism for death by torture ever by the 
wit of man devised. This Petherick was no worse than 
his vicar, who was attached to answer the lord for dis- 
turbing the Prince’s tenants by suing them in the Spiritual 
Court for tithes which they did not owe him. 

The history of Wheal Dream, dealing with its legends, 
mining operations, and people, would need a volume ; 
and it is with the present, rather than its past, condition 
that we are now concerned. The present inhabitants are 
our subject; the last dregs of the folk, still ignorant and 
primitive, who are being killed like the Red Indians by 
the civilisation which has for a long time surrounded and 
is now breaking over them, driving out the old, bringing 
in the new, ringing out the age of mettle, of muscle, sinew, 
and simplicity, and heralding the age of skill, brains, and 
trickery. Bigbones has finished his reign and must go 
to the wall against which he has been wont to push Little- 
bones. Evolution stays for nothing; first vegetation, then 
reptiles, then mammals, and now brains. The age of 
cunning has begun ; and God help the giant. 

John and Ursula Petherick occupied the farmhouse, and 
Amos Chown, her father, lived with them. He owned part 
of the furniture, an old-fashioned sofa as hard and uncom- 
fortable to sit upon as a granite boulder, some chairs, a 
sideboard, and a table; at least he said so, but he was 
always claiming things, being old and liking to feel he was 
adding to his possessions. Sometimes he would point 
with one of his sticks to a picture or abominable orna- 
ment, and assert, “ He be mine.” If his daughter 
disagreed. Father, as he was always called, would take 
the article away to his own room and cover it carefully 
with a piece of sacking so that it should not be used or 
looked at. If she agreed he would chuckle and promise 
she should have it at his death. That event seemed a 
long way off. Father appeared to have reached a fixed 
point at which he threatened to become a permanent part 
of the landscape of Wheal Dream. He grew no older 
except in years. He tottered to and fro along the little 
road, from kitchen to linhay, from garden to cowshed, 
thinking he was doing a hard day’s work but in reality 
doing nothing. He could chop an armful of sticks when 
the wind was westerly, but on ordinary occasions it took 


Heather 


30 

him half-a-day to cut a cabbage. The poor old fellow was 
dirty in his habits and it didn’t trouble him if any one 
was looking. He spent much of his time on the little 
road, leaning heavily upon two sticks, coughing and 
spitting in a manner highly inartistic. 

The tiny cottage was occupied by Uncle, whose other 
name was Gifford. There appeared to be some mystery 
about this old man, as he owned the cottage and a field 
behind, which property should have belonged to the 
Pethericks, and how he came by his title was not clear. 
His relationship was not clear either; he was Uncle to 
every one — even Father, who did not like him, called him 
Uncle. Ursula, who was manager of the estate — John 
being a debased type of being — was always saying that 
a great mistake had been made in permitting Uncle’s claim 
to the field and cottage, but she could not explain how 
it had come to pass. Uncle remained in possession, 
though it was quite understood that the property would 
revert to the Pethericks upon his death, which could not 
be very far distant if only he did not contract the perennial 
habits of old Chown. Uncle was not beautiful to the eye ; 
in a society of baboons he might have passed, but among 
trousered beings he took a low rank, for his face was an 
ugly red mask surrounded by a bristling hedge of whis- 
kers, and a yellow fang on each side of his jaw were the 
sole survivors of the thirty-two which had fallen in the 
long struggle with Dartmoor bread and bacon. Uncle 
lived by himself; in the phrase of the moor “ he had no 
woman,” but the house-work was very light, for the bed 
only required making once a month and there were no 
dinners to be cooked. 

The tenant of the mine house made himself heard at 
noon and in the dimsies. These were the times when he 
stretched his limbs and whistled. Many men who live 
alone take a pleasure in whistling, and George Bruna- 
combe had grown skilful with long practice. He whistled 
the old songs he remembered shouting in his youth, 
sentimental rubbish, pothouse melodies, and hunting- 
ditties. At night, after finishing his work, he would sit 
by the window, looking down upon the ruins of Wheal 
Dream, and trying to imitate the night birds. On these 
occasions he was answered by his companion, for George 


About Wheal Dream 31 

did not live alone. One evening while skirting a tor he 
had introduced himself to Bubo, who had evidently been 
flung with violence from the home of his parents, either 
for misbehaving himself or as a person of no importance, 
and had damaged a leg in his fall. Bubo was quite a 
baby, and his round piteous eyes appealed to George, who 
picked him up, brought him home, and treated him as his 
own son. The injured leg dropped off, but Bubo did not 
appear to miss it much, nor did he hobble about with two 
sticks after the manner of the old men on the other side 
of the gorge. Two little wings were good enough for 
him, but they never carried him far from the mine house. 
The little owl loved the big one with all his owlish heart; 
for it could never have occurred to Bubo that his protector 
was a human being, one of those monstrous creatures 
who arm themselves with guns, traps, knives, and poison, 
like villains of melodrama, and wage war upon pretty 
beings who sin by asking for little bits of the big world 
to dwell in and small gulps of air to keep their hearts 
beating. Still Bubo ought to have known better, for 
George had described himself at some length for his com- 
panion’s benefit; and the little owl was given every oppor- 
tunity to watch the big one at work, only he was so 
sleepy in the day time and at night there were mice to 
hunt in the mine house. George had lost no time in 
explaining himself — 

“ If you care to share the house of a superfluous and 
injured being, who is tormented by seven devils, you shall 
be welcome, little one. I can see you are injured, and I 
may guess you are superfluous. You appear to have been 
the one beak too much, and the morality of your society 
does not insist upon your preservation, which is so like 
the morality of mine that I must take pity upon you. We 
are both bipeds originally, which appears to be another 
tie between us. I regret the absence of wings, but as 
you can see I have the bones, which for lack of a better 
name I call arms. The feathers have not grown yet, but 
good theologians assure me they will be produced 
abundantly in a future state.” 

The fluffy little big-eyed ball made a sound of ridiculous 
incredulity, much more like a human baby than an owl. 

” Don’t get perturbed. I won’t force my religion upon 


Heather 


32 

you,” Georg'e went on, in a gentle manner which made 
his cynicism harmless enough. “ \yhen you grow up 
you may join the Seventh Day Adventists or the Plymouth 
Brethren if you like. I do not know your sex, therefore 
I shall regard you for the present as without one. Later 
on I shall regard you as common to either, with a tendency 
towards the male gender. I hope you won’t betray my 
confidence by laying an egg.” 

Bubo drew a film over his eyes, as if he was trying to 
take photographs of his companion, and assumed an 
attitude of dejection. George created a perch, placed 
Bubo thereon with his face towards the dark, and con- 
tinued — 

“ So long as your presence helps to drive out the devil 
of loneliness, which is the chief of all the devils, you shall 
remain. When you cease to do so, you and some beef- 
steak will meet together in a pie. The second devil tor- 
menting me is the very devil of disease, the third of 
poverty, the fourth of art, the fifth of literature, the sixth 
of poetry, the seventh of ambition — I’m afraid there are 
others quite as bad, and they go at me with red-hot claws ; 
and the only angel who fights on my side against these 
devils is glorious Dartmoor wind.” 

That was George’s history in a few words ; he was a 
man tormented by devils; hardly a genius, but possessing 
all the talents, and not succeeding in any of them ; not 
knowing himself what he was. One time he called him- 
self an artist, another time a writer of prose, and then 
a poet. He had tried sculpture, architecture, preparing 
designs for painted windows, many other things. He 
could do them all, but there were always plenty of others 
who could do them better. Had all his powers been con- 
centrated in one form of art he must have been a success ; 
as it was he represented that most unsatisfactory and 
luckless of beings, the man of many facets with mediocrity 
written upon each one. Nature could have taught him a 
lesson had he been a closer student of her ways. She 
would have shown him that the tree which has its lower 
branches lopped grows into one fine head. George had 
not the strength of will to lop off his side branches and 
devote all his sap to one strong growth. Art admits of 
no trifling ; she must have the whole heart or none. The 


About Wheal Dream 


33 

mind which is so powerful in one big current becomes 
weak and shallow when divided into a number of little 
streams. The man, who called himself one day a painter 
and the next a poet, had not learnt that. 

George was weak in body and mind, but strong in 
courage. He did not know when he was beaten. In 
the old days he had taken a London studio, and set 
himself to win the title of first painter of the day, though 
even then he would write poetry at night; but he could 
not make a living out of art, and had to fall back upon 
posters for cigarettes and soaps. The first thing that 
did for him was his originality. He filled a big canvas 
with a Hebrew subject, Elijah running before the chariot 
of Ahab towards the gates of Jezreel, a fine picture full 
of strength; the driver leaning over his horses urging 
them on, the king scowling at the old man who seemed 
to be carried by the wind ahead, the storm breaking 
behind. Unconventional treatment caused the picture to 
be rejected by the Academy ; and the dealers to whom it 
was offered refused to buy for the same reason. One of 
Hebrew extraction was prepared to offer a few pounds if 
George would paint a halo about Elijah’s head, but the 
artist refused with violence, saying that no amount of 
argument would ever convince him that men passed 
through life with a sort of glorified soup-plate hovering 
above their heads. Back the picture went to his studio, 
and with a few touches George reduced it from the 
sublime to the ridiculous, and sold it finally to a firm as an 
advertising poster for their extract of beef. 

The second cause of his defeat was illness; his chest 
had been always weak, and at the age of thirty grave 
symptoms asserted themselves, and the stubborn fellow 
worked with one hand while he pushed death away with 
the other. That sort of struggle could not last long in 
the atmosphere of Fitzroy Street. He became so weak 
that he could hardly drag himself across the studio, and 
he was in daily peril of being killed when crossing a street. 
Pen and brush fell from his hand at last because the 
fingers could no longer control them, and one day George 
muttered between his coughs, “ I’ll go home, and crawl 
over the rocks, and die upon the heather.” He came of 
a Devonshire family, the Brunacombes of Plympton, last 

3 


Heather 


34 

and least of the Stannary Towns, and his boyhood had 
been spent upon the moor. Even in time of health he had 
longed for the little rivers and the open spaces, and the 
sweet smell of peat. He loathed the never-ending maze 
of streets which stifled body and mind alike. With five 
shillings in his pocket he went off to a doctor, and said 
in his brusque way, “ I want you to examine me. Five 
shillings is all I can afford, and if it isn’t enough I’ll go 
to a hospital and be examined for nothing.” The doctor 
went over him, laughed cheerily — ^he was an Irishman 
with a keen sense of humour — and told him he would 
probably be dead in three months. “ Thanks,” said 
George. “ When a doctor gives you up the worst is 
over. This time next year I’ll run you a mile for that 
five bob.” “Keep it for your funeral expenses,” said 
the jolly Irishman. “ You’ll want it first,” replied 
George; and off he went, assisting his steps homeward 
by the area railings. 

The next thing was to raise a little capital for the 
exodus. A few pictures went at half-a-crown apiece to a 
bejewelled Israelite who was by no means without guile, 
but the sum thus obtained did not mean affluence. Then 
George remembered he had a sort of aunt, a lady who 
had married his uncle and lived somewhere in the West 
End in the seclusion of widowhood, so he went off in 
search of her, forgetting the exact address but remember- 
ing the locality. After searching two days, and ringing 
a number of bells, and making use of about two score 
brcss knockers, and being confronted with the super- 
cilious stare of numerous men-servants and maid-servants, 
he was directed to a narrow house which he at first 
mistook as a sort of rival to the Zoological Gardens. 
Mrs. Brunacombe lived there in the society of beasts and 
fishes, creeping things and fowls of the air. When 
George was introduced he found himself in the strong- 
smelling atmosphere of a room where cats and monkeys 
were disporting themselves without much respect for furni- 
ture, parrots were shrieking and canaries making bedlam. 
White mice were upon one chair, an unholy looking lizard 
upon another, and in tanks round the walls were fishes 
and various aquatic monsters. The childless owner of all 
this created life was trying to administer a worm-pill to 


About Wheal Dream 


35 

a sick and shivering dog. “ He will eat the lizards,” 
she explained, “ and they disagree with him.” 

” I should imagine it was equally unhealthy for the 
lizards,” said George. ” I hope there are no tigers,” 
he went on nervously. 

” Oh no, none of the larger carnivora,” said the lady, 
who was not troubled with a sense of humour. ” But a 
young panther is coming next week. I hope he will get 
on with the others. Who are you ? Did you say you were 
a relation?” 

” I am your nephew, George Brunacombe. ” 

” Oh yes, poor Willie’s nephew. You used to come 
and dine when he was alive. After his death I felt lonely, 
so I surrounded myself with this little family. The neigh- 
bours object rather, as the snakes escape sometimes, and 
the people about here are not lovers of animals. One 
lot prosecuted me, but last summer they went away and 
left a cat shut up in the empty house, so I prosecuted 
them for that, and now we are level again.” 

“ I have come to see you because I am ill,” said George, 
coming to business while he could. The atmosphere of 
that menagerie was telling upon him. 

‘‘You look it,” said his aunt happily. ‘‘ I’ll give you 
a box of pills. My little round things cure anything. I 
take one myself every night.” 

‘‘ I want to go home to Dartmoor,” George went on. 
‘‘ Only I have no money. I came to ask you if you are 
leaving me anything?” 

‘‘ Bless the man. I want it all for the poor animals,” 
cried his aunt. As a matter of fact she was leaving 
George a thousand pounds, all of which was Brunacombe 
money left by the deceased William. 

‘‘ I am willing to be regarded as a poor animal,” said 
George. ‘‘ I have broken down. I have reached the 
crisis of my life, and if I can’t get a little money now I 
must go under. If you are leaving me anything, can 
you let me have it now?” 

‘‘ If I give you five hundred pounds will you promise 
not to worry me again?” said the lady. 

George promised, Mrs. Brunacombe said she would 
write to her man of business, and the interview ended with 
a present of a box of pills and a firm refusal to kiss a 
strongly-scented monkey. Then the sick man got away 


Heather 


36 

as well as he could, but as he passed the window up it 
went like a bomb exploding, the^ lady’s head appeared, 
and her voice shouted amid the shrieks of parrots, ‘‘ When 
you get down to Dartmoor send me up some nice big 
sundews. I’ll keep them in saucers and fatten ’em with 
bits of meat.” 

So George went back to his native air and for some 
months played the invalid in a farmhouse near Two 
Bridges. Then he grew better and was able to travel 
about the moor looking for a home, working towards the 
high district in the north which is dominated by the huge 
curving line of Hoga de Cosdon or Cawsand. One even- 
ing he reached the little village of Metheral, which was 
at that time unknown to the outer world ; and as he 
walked in the dark along the road he stumbled upon a 
huge pair of boots the toes of which were making minia- 
ture tors heavenwards. A man occupied those boots, and 
his name was John Petherick, and his condition from his 
own point of view was satisfactory. George assisted 
him to rise and helped him home. They reached Wheal 
Dream in the dark and were welcomed by Ursula, who 
was far more astonished at the presence of the gentleman 
than by the state of her husband. George stayed there 
for the night as he thought; but he never went away 
from the place again. He too had his dream, like the 
spadiard of those days of legend; a dream of riches, 
fame, and a fair maiden. He woke with a thrill, the 
glory of that delicious dream — love idealised ; what could 
be better? — in him and through him, and saw that the 
room was in glory too. The moon had come up while 
he slept. He wondered what it was like in the dream- 
land outside, for it had been too dark to see anything 
when he had arrived assisting foul-smelling Petherick 
along the Stannary road. He went to the window and 
looked out, down into the gorge, saw the old mine below, 
the old wheal house beyond, the sparkling water, the 
heather shaken by the wind. He could not describe what 
he saw. It was like the dream, which still seemed to be 
floating there in the moonlit haze and the unpolluted air. 
George put out his head and drank. 

” I have come home,” he said. 


CHAPTER III 


ABOUT A MIXED FAMILY 

The distance between Wheal Dream and the sanatorium 
was not great in strides; but in other matters they were 
years apart. Progress in the region of the mine was 
slow, and it was an evil kind of progress; the wind of 
civilisation which blows no native any good. Ursula 
looked upon those ladies who came to her house once, but 
never again, perceived that she belonged to the same 
species, but that her life was not theirs, and forthwith she 
broke out into complaints about her lot. She wanted to 
be in a position to wear fine raiment and to despise work ; 
and because she could not rise she sank, believing in her 
foolish mind that she was ascending in the social scale by 
insulting her lodgers, lying shamelessly, cheating, attend- 
ing to them when in a state of intoxication, and hiccuping 
noisily at their objections. She thought she was making 
herself a lady. 

John was a supreme effort of Nature’s work in clown- 
ishness. To see him walk was a revelation in clumsiness. 
He stumbled along, his head much in advance of his 
boots, his body lurching first to one side, then to the 
other, following the feet, as though the body had been 
made of some sort of rubber, his elbows and arms paddling 
the air like a very awkward swimmer. He was so ignor- 
ant that it was difficult to make him comprehend the most 
ordinary remark. It had required a week for George to 
impress upon him with Ursula’s assistance the simple 
statement that he wanted to buy the mine house; and 
other days were spent in explaining to John that he was 
not going to be robbed. He never quite understood what 
had happened, except that he had received £iSo and some 
bottles of whisky for the old building and the scrap of 

37 


Heather 


38 

ground it occupied. The liquor appealed to his under- 
standing with more success, and he lost no time in devot- 
ing it to the use for which it was intended, only much 
too quickly. Perhaps that was why he had no recollection 
of cleaning the place out — it had been used as a barn 
before George came — or of helping the mason to repair 
the house. John was a good worker where no skill was 
required. He could not have nailed two bits of wood 
together, but he could haul granite with any one. 

George had come as a sort of missionary to Wheal 
Dream, unsettling people who would have been much 
better left alone, making the Pethericks pay the usual 
penalty of ignorant folk who occupy a pleasant part of the 
earth’s surface. In a sense he had cheated them, as the 
property was worth more than he had given, but he was 
too poor to offer more and the money seemed a great 
deal to them, though it did them far more harm than 
good. They spent every penny in folly of some kind. 
Heaven only knows how they did spend it, for nothing 
was added to the farm and no improvement was effected 
in the property. At the end they were actually worse off 
by having lost the mine house. Nor was this all. Dart- 
moor was getting discovered ; city folk were finding out 
that little bits of terrestrial Paradise had been dropped 
about on this roof of Devon and had become accessible 
with the building of railways and the extinction of hostile 
savages. They also ascertained that land for building 
was scarce and that the Duchy had become jealous of its 
rights. There was nothing for it but to use a little honest 
cunning with the ignorant folk. A cunning lawyer came 
to Wheal Dream and dazzled the Pethericks with 
sovereigns. He said they could have them, as he was 
sorry to see them so poor and hardworking, only they 
would have to pay him interest which meant just a few 
pounds each year. He also promised to protect their 
interests against every one, and to give them the benefit 
of his advice at any time free of charge. Then he pro- 
duced a paper which they couldn’t read, and invited John 
to test his powers of penmanship. The poor clown could 
not write, but he made his mark in the presence of wit- 
nesses, and the lawyer went away with most of that 
pretty bit of Dartmoor known as Wheal Dream mortgaged 


About a Mixed Family 39 

to him. The Court of Stannary itself could not have done 
a neater stroke of business; but the distinction was 
obvious ; for the officials of that Court were an unscrupu- 
lous lot, and this lawyer was a respectable man and a 
gentleman. 

One other thing civilisation had done for the Pethericks ; 
it had made them atheists. Greater presumption could 
hardly be imagined, seeing that their freewill — a gift which 
neither of them deserved — was not allied with the smallest 
particle of knowledge. John and Ursula treated the 
stupendous problems of life and origin like so much cow- 
dung, as rotten stuff to be trampled into the land. They 
had not the sense to learn anything from their cows or 
pigs, who looked to them for food and attention, just as 
the lowest of human beings look up at the sun and behind 
that to the origin of creation which must exist somewhere. 
They thought it a fine thing to believe in nothing. It 
was originality, although they would not have known the 
meaning of that word ; it made them different from, and 
therefore better than, their associates. They sneered 
when the chapel-folk passed weighted with respectable 
Bibles. They were superior to that sort of thing. And 
yet when Ursula had anything new in the way of outward 
apparel she went to church, not to be “ put upon by the 
reverent,” but to display her advancement in the social 
scale. As for Father, he was too old and tired to worry 
much. He considered that the religious attendances of 
his younger days would serve to “bring him home,” if 
he thought about the matter at all. Perhaps he would 
have gone to church if they had let him spit and relieve 
himself as he desired. 

The Pethericks did not attempt to understand Uncle, 
and therefore they despised him. Old Gifford had much 
to put up with. For all his ugliness he was a gentle old 
thing; he was also fairly well educated, that is to say he 
could read and scratch a few characters upon paper; and 
there was a warm sort of heart in his baboon-like body. 
The old fellow would have appreciated a little sympathy, 
but he didn’t get it from the Pethericks. They only 
wanted to know when he was going to die and let them 
have his field and cottage. 

“ How be ye, Uncle?” asked Ursula, as she passed the 


Heather 


40 

little court across the culvert where the water was splash- 
ing into the bowels of Wheal Dream. She was going to 
the mine house to make the place dirtier under the pretence 
of cleaning up, as it had been agreed under the contract 
of sale that she should act as George’s housekeeper. 

“ Mazed,” said the old man in his resigned way. He 
was peeping over the gate where he often stood, unlike 
Father who shuffled to and fro. Fortunately Uncle was 
not objectionable in his habits ; another like old Chown 
would have made the Stannary road insanitary. 

” Bad job if yew’m mazed,” said Ursula pleasantly. 
“ What be chapel going to du? Reckon ’em wun’t open 
on Sundays when yew’m gone home.” 

Uncle did not continue the subject, knowing he would 
be jeered at. He only meant to imply that he was in a 
state of bewilderment. It was evident he wanted to talk 
to some one. He held a highly coloured card printed in 
Bavaria which was a long way from Wheal Dream; and 
on one side was inscribed ” Mr. Gifford, Wheal Dream, 
Metheral, England,” with a short message written in a 
somewhat baffling style; and on the other was the full- 
length portrait of a simpering young lady who seemed to 
have mislaid most of her clothes. Uncle thought it very 
beautiful but rather shocking, and he had almost decided 
that the card must not be placed in his Bible where such 
art treasures usually reposed. He was silly enough to 
show the picture side to Ursula, who broke out at once — 

“That be a proper old thing, bain’t it? The sort o’ 
thing yew chapel-folk send to one another. Some woman 
sent ’en, I reckon, some dirty woman wi’out the shame to 
cover her nakedness. Us bain’t going to have no woman 
here. Uncle, and I tells ye, whether ’em be respectable, 
or whether ’em be actresses. That’s what comes o’ your 
chapel meeting when yew gropes in the dark. I reckon 
yew ha’ seen she wi’ less on than her has there.” 

“ It come this morning,” said Uncle in his defenceless 
way, as if that was a complete answer to her charges. 

” Well, break ’en up, and try to live decent,” said 
Ursula, with a full sense of her own virtue. 

Uncle wanted to say a good deal more, but he was wise 
enough to refrain. Ursula would not treat him fairly. 
He put his baboon-like head over the gate and looked 


About a Mixed Family 41 

along the little road, wondering if there was any one to 
listen to him. There was only Father scratching his back 
against a projecting stone like an old horse, ignorant 
that a bath would probably have been a better cure; but 
another figure was proceeding slowly towards the moor 
gate, and Uncle watched it until he recognised old Willum 
Brokenbrow who was coming from the village to inquire 
after Father’s health. He was no friend, so Uncle 
shuffled over the court to where the water pushed through 
the ferns, and went up some rough steps which led to 
his garden suspended on the steep side of the moor; and 
there he seated himself and exhibited his improper post- 
card to the bees. 

Ursula had gone on to the mine house and was telling 
George what a dirty old creature Uncle was getting, and 
how various women were inciting him to marry them by 
sending him portraits of their anatomical charms. “ Uncle 
ha’ saved a bit. That’s what they’m after,” she said. 
” Them chapel women would du worse than go naked vor 
a bit o’ money.” 

On the road Father was coughing and spitting worse 
than ever, while old Brokenbrow aided and abetted his 
efforts until George had to get up and shut his window. 
The old men were deadly rivals and they desired to con- 
vince each other how ill they were. They had been 
friendly once, and all the bitterness between them had been 
caused by the sexton, who one day took it into his head 
to uproot a large escallonia which grew beside the wall of 
the church and close to the porch. There was at first no 
connection between the sexton’s high-handed deed — which 
was perhaps natural, as no commoner can tolerate the 
sight of a growing tree or bush — and the controversy be- 
tween Chown and Brokenbrow. The sexton, who could 
do as he liked in the churchyard— the vicar being old and 
indifferent — had removed the escallonia to lessen his own 
labours. The bush grew so rapidly and was always 
requiring to be trimmed, and to clear it away meant 
having no more bother with it. The unforeseen result 
was that another burying-space came into existence, which 
was also the choicest in the whole churchyard, being 
snugly situated in the angle made by wall with porch, 
and in full view of every one who entered the building. 


Heather 


42 

Naturally the last commandment was shattered; for there 
are few things a commoner hankers after much more than 
a desirable resting-place, and competition for the new 
space became so severe that the sexton had to promise in 
the vicar’s name that the grave should be awarded to the 
first parishioner who should be in a fitting condition to 
occupy it. No better plan for robbing death of its un- 
pleasantness could possibly have been devised; and when 
the wheelwright of the adjoining village of Downacombe- 
beside-the-moor, who was also an undertaker and a good 
many other things beside, promised to award a handsome 
coffin to the successful competitor, enthusiasm ran high, 
and a peaceful ending became the favourite topic of con- 
versation among the aged and infirm. 

Unfortunately for the aspirants it is not such an easy 
matter to perish upon the heights of Dartmoor. The 
wind, like the ancestral bellows in every cottage, blows 
the flame up whenever it dies down, and a funeral is such 
a rare event that it naturally attracts far more attention 
and provokes much greater real joyousness than any com- 
moner function such as a wedding or revel. Try as they 
would the old folk couldn’t get rid of their mortality. The 
very effort seemed to make them more lusty and strong. The 
excitement of trying to succumb stimulated them to take 
a new lease of life. Some of them tried unfair means, 
such as protracted visits to the inn, until the sexton inter- 
vened with the statement that he and the vicar had drawn 
up certain rules. Any one who might be suspected of any 
attempt at shortening his days by means of beer would 
be disqualified. The publican opposed this measure with 
violence, but without success. He described it as a 
deliberate attempt to take the bread out of his mouth. 

Father had been for some time considered the most 
likely candidate for the position, but Brokenbrow had 
been gaining upon him lately, and in the opinion of many 
good judges was thought likely to win. After reaching a 
certain point Father ceased to make any downward pro- 
gress, while Brokenbrow failed with a regularity which 
was reassuring to himself and his friends. Old Chown 
had therefore every reason to regard his rival with hatred. 
He had not the least desire to hobble in the rear of the 
procession which would follow Brokenbrow to that snug 


About a Mixed Family 43 

corner beside the porch. He wanted to look down from 
on hig'h and regard the disappointed Brokenbrow following 
him. 

“How be ye, Willum?” he asked, as they hobbled 
together upon the Stannary road. “ Purty fine, I reckon,’' 
he added hopefully. 

“ I be cruel bad. I knaw I be bad,” said the champion 
of Metheral. “ I be going home soon.” 

Home was to old Willum, not heaven, but the beautiful 
corner near the porch where his tombstone would be wit- 
nessed by worshippers from one generation to another. 

“ Yew’m looking lusty, Amos,” he said happily. 

“ I bain’t,” said Father sharply. “ I be expecting more 
and more. Doctor gave I a little bottle for my expecta- 
tions, and he looked at ’en through a telescope and said ’em 
warn’t the expectations of a man what could live long.” 

Father’s rendering of unusual words was generally 
inaccurate. He gave further details which were not 
pleasant hearing; and then he hoped Brokenbrow would 
hobble home and take great care of himself, as he feared 
the old man was overtaxing his strength by walking across 
to Wheal Dream. Brokenbrow assured him that he could 
look after himself, until such time as the whole neighbour- 
hood should turn out in black garments to do him honour. 
He went on to mention how his grandson had driven him 
down in the farm cart to Downacombe and had stopped 
at the wheelwright’s yard. They had gone in to gloat 
over the prize of the competition which was open in more 
senses than one to the parishioners of Metheral. 

“ Brass handles, Amos,” he whispered tauntingly. 
“Aw, ’twas a bravish sight. Brass handle as ’twas 
here, and another as ’twas there. Good enough vor the 
Duke, God save ’en. And a plate on the top o’ mun all 
brass, and ’tis proper, Amos. The plate vor the name, 
Willum Brokenbrow, went to heaven as ’tmight be 
Monday.” 

Father made disgusting noises and pawed with his two 
sticks like a new quadruped. He was in the unfortunate 
position of being unable to assault Brokenbrow, as that 
might only hasten on his rival’s decease. His vocabulary 
was so limited that he could not express his feelings beyond 
saying, “ I be dalled if Metheral be going to beat Wheal 
Dream. ” 


Heather 


44 

“ They’m putting on varnish tu, best brown varnish. 
They’m sparing no expense ’cause ’tis an advertisement 
vor ’em,” continued Brokenbrow, with great relish. ” ’Tis 
made of oak, and wull last hundreds o’ years. There 
bain’t many a squire what can alford to be put away as 
I’ll be, please God.” 

Father made more noises and shuffled away, his queer 
old head shaking like the top of a pine-tree. ” Yew wun’t 
ha’ ’en. Us wun’t let ye. Us wur commoners avore 
yew,” he growled. 

‘‘Yew can’t du nought if I goes first, as I be going 
to. I gets weaker every day,” came the exasperating 
answer. 

‘‘ Us ’ll dig ye out on’t,” declared poor old Father. He 
had set his simple heart upon that grave, and he saw 
nothing humorous in his ambitions. After his grovelling 
life it would be such a great thing to be buried like a 
gentleman, and to lie beside the entry of the church for 
ever. His rival’s hoarse cackle of laughter fell upon his 
dull ears as they parted in a state of enmity which would 
never have existed had the lazy sexton not demolished that 
bush of escallonia. 

The damp and shadowy mists dragged themselves across 
the moor, and the curving line of Cawsand became like a 
sky-serpent. Uncle came down from his garden, lighted 
the smoky lamp in his little stone-floored room — it was 
very cold and bare, but he did not notice any defect, as 
he was accustomed to nothing else — opened the big Bible 
upon the table, and stood leaning over it peering at the 
big black print. He read aloud from the big book every 
night and morning, and when he became excited over a 
battle or murder all Wheal Dream could hear him ; and 
the Pethericks would bang at the partition wall, telling 
him to ‘‘ shut his noise,” and sometimes would poke their 
heads in at the door to assure him what they thought of 
chapel-folk. Uncle did not heed them, but went on read- 
ing by the gleam of the smoky lamp. He stood when he 
read his Bible, his boots upon the cold stones, his hands, 
upon his sticks, his head low down. He missed none of 
the long words, but read them all, although pedants might 
have been surprised and grieved at some of his renderings. 

That evening Uncle could not read because he was 


About a Mixed Family 45 

excited and unsettled. It was all on account of the post- 
card, the almost illegible message upon it, not the almost 
immoral picture. He held it firmly in his left hand; he 
had not let it go since morning, and he was making it 
very dirty, as Uncle did not spend money on soap. Then 
the chapter it was his duty to read proved very dry; there 
wasn’t a single murder in it and not even a battle. Uncle 
went out ; his sticks tapped upon the rough stones ; he 
went towards the mine house feeling that he must speak 
to some one; his baboon-like head was aching just be- 
cause he couldn’t find any one to appreciate the post- 
card. There was a light in Father’s room and there were 
insanitary noises. The old gentleman was going to bed, 
thinking of the beautiful grave and trying to qualify 
himself for it. 

George was in his studio, writing poetry, as it was too 
dark for painting, while Bubo made merry upon his perch, 
trying to describe the joys of evening to his master, telling 
him about the dusky pine-trees and the fir-cones falling 
in the wind unseen by any one, and how beautifully 
scented the night was, though mortals missed it all; and 
then at the dawn, which was the dimsy of all respectable 
owls, the pine-trees would shake themselves and wake, 
and birches would rustle and whisper like ladies clad in 
silk, and little pink blossoms of the whortle would sprinkle 
the silvery and slippery moor with jewels of the morning. 
And then Bubo scuttled off in a practical mood to hunt 
mice, while George wondered who was knocking at the 
door. 

It was only Uncle showing his two yellow fangs as if 
he was proud of them and trying to be very amiable. It 
was not so dark that the artist could not see a gaudy 
picture which had nothing whatever to do with Puritan- 
ism, for Uncle was holding it out and beaming over it, and 
declaring in his quaint, cracked voice how it had come to 
him that morning. George was at a loss for words. 
From an artistic "point of view the card was an abomina- 
tion ; as a toy it was good enough for Uncle, but it did 
not appeal to him. ^ 

“ Coming to-morrow, sir,” whispered old Giftord 
eagerly. That was what he had wanted to say all day. 
His head felt better already. 


Heather 


46 

“ Is she?” said George dryly. ‘‘I’m afraid the folk 
will say unpleasant things about you.” 

‘‘ No, sir. ’Twas a lawful marriage. Us wur wed in 
Metheral church, and Jimmy be our grandson, sir,” said 
Uncle, trying hard to explain and finding it difficult, but 
delighted to have a listener. 

George perceived that the old man had come to relieve 
his mind, to tell him something, not to exhibit a portrait 
of his wife. In a more sympathetic voice he suggested, 

‘‘ You had this card from her this morning?” 

‘‘ Her’s dead, sir,” replied Uncle. ‘‘ ’Tis from Jimmy. 
He sent it and ses he’m coming. I wun’t live lonely any 
more, sir. Thankye kindly vor hearkening,” he added, 
with great respect. 

The old man was himself again, and was happy now he 
had imparted the great secret with which he had been in 
travail all day. Jimmy was coming home to look after 
him, cheer him with conversation, walk to chapel with 
him, protect him from the Pethericks. Jimmy would go 
out to work while Uncle stopped at home to clean the 
co'ttage and cook the food. When the troublesome gift of 
imagination had been given out Uncle had been hovering 
near the outskirts of the crowd and had picked up a tiny 
fragment which somebody with a big load of it had 
dropped. Uncle was using that fragment, and by its 
virtue he saw himself looking over the moor gate every 
evening waiting for Jimmy to come home with the reed 
basket on his arm and crowbar over his shoulder, for 
Jimmy was a strong boy and would become a granite- 
cracker. It would be a happy life for the old man now 
that Jimmy was coming home. 

‘‘ He’m my grandson, sir, son o’ my son,” he went on. 
“ His vaither took to beer, sir, and went to foreign parts, 
and I ain’t never heard on ’en since. Read ’en, sir,” he 
said, holding out the dirty postcard. 

George took it and went back into the house, while 
Uncle followed and stood at the inner door, his ugly face 
shining with happiness in the lamplight. He was very 
glad he had summoned up courage to come and tell the 
gentleman. He would find his Bible very interesting 
reading when he got back. 

‘‘ He’s coming to-day,” said George suddenly. 


About a Mixed Family 47 

“ To-morrow, sir,” said Uncle, with firmness. The 
gentleman was speaking to him as if he hadn’t got every 
bit of the card by heart. 

” That means to-day. You see he wrote it yesterday,” 
George explained; but it was some time before he could 
make Uncle alter his opinion. When he succeeded 
lamentations followed. 

“ I mun get back and blow up the turves, and I mun go 
up the garden and pull carrots and turnips and mak’ a 
stew vor Jimmy. He’ll be proper hungry sure ’nuff. 
What did him want to say he wur coming to-morrow 
when he’m coming to-day?” 

Uncle went off on his two sticks, faster than he had 
walked for years, while George pulled off his working coat 
and wiped the snuff from his bushy beard. He had not 
been out of the house all day, and he thought he would 
get on the moor and tramp a mile or two through the 
heather to watch the white mist rolling down the dark 
cleave of the Okement. There was fascination for George 
the artist in that cleave, the fascination of romance and 
dreams. He took his stick and went out, passing the 
kitchen where Ursula, with a grimy shawl over her head, 
appeared to be flinging crockery and saucepans about as 
a preliminary to preparing his supper. He knew what it 
was — cold mutton which the butcher called lamb. It was 
always cold mutton at the wheal house. That knuckly 
bone clad with a little sorrowful meat was another of 
George’s devils. He cursed the thought of it as he went 
up the steep slope out of the gorge, up on the heights, 
skirting the big bog, and still up until there was nothing 
to break the wind and he felt it tugging at his beard.^ 

In the cleave beyond it was silent enough; one side of 
it was the moor bristling with clatters, a breakneck sort 
of place leading down to a bubbling bog; the other side, 
steep almost as a wall, was the hanging garden of the 
wood of Halstock. Down the bottom the river slid over 
its smooth bed of stone, always visible because it is white 
like a snowslide. It penetrates the darkest night with its 
cold whiteness, and a belated pedestrian will start some- 
times and exclaim, “What’s that?” George knew his 
way; there was no secret of that cleave which had not 
been revealed to him. Down the steep side he went. 


Heather 


48 

reeling from a boulder, plunging into furze, careless of 
prickles or bruises, drawing near the spot which was the 
source of his inspiration, the place which was hallowed 
with the romance of two thousand years. There it was 
under the black shadow of the hanging wood, a swirl of 
white water, a line of flat stones — the ford which lies on 
the east side of St. Michael’s chapel of Halstock. 

“ Out of a world of cold mutton at last,” gasped 
George. 

The chapel has gone, its memory has almost fled, but 
the Ford remains; the Ford is necessary, the chapel was 
not. Men must cross the river, but they needn’t go to 
church. 

” But not out of the world of those things that spoil 
Wheal Dream,” George muttered. 

A boy was sitting on a flat stone hugging a big bundle 
in his arms, a hungry-looking boy with a low forehead, 
flat nose, and big mouth. Only his mother could have 
called him beautiful. 

” You are Jimmy Gifford,” said George, going up to 
him. 

The boy looked frightened and sullen, but he answered 
civilly enough, ” Ees, sir. I be going to Wheal Dream. 
Where’s it to, sir?” 

” Up over,” said George, pointing over the moor, which 
was getting black and threatening. ” Why did you come 
this way?” 

” They told I ’twas shortest way from the station.” 

“So it is, for a bird. But it’s no joke walking up by 
the waterslide after dark.” 

” I corned quick, sir, to get up avore the light went. 
I be proper tired,” said the boy. 

” No wonder. Why don’t you sling that bundle on 
your back?” 

George started as he spoke. It seemed to him that the 
bundle of clothing wriggled as if some small animal was 
inside. The boy opened it ; there was a mass of rags 
and tatters, and in the middle some wizened features, a 
sort of old man’s face, a little white bald head. 

” What have you got there — a monkey?” 

” A little babby, sir. Her’s mine,” was the answer. 

” You’re the father. How old are you?” 


About a Mixed Family 49 

“ Sixteen, sir.” 

” Who’s the mother?” 

“ A little maid, sir. ” 

” I mean how old is she?” 

“ Fifteen come January, sir.” 

George turned his head and looked at the stones in the 
swirling water, and beyond to the wet wood and St. 
Michael’s heights. He was wondering whether any more 
astounding couple than the boy and the baby had ever 
crossed that historic ford. 

” You. had better get on. Your grandfather is waiting 
for you. I will show you the way round to Wheal Dream. ” 

Jimmy got up, hugging his burden, and followed the 
gentleman up the steep track, lurching from side to side 
and panting, while George muttered to himself, ” And I’m 
nearly forty. The miserable rabbits ! According to their 
view of life, if they have one, I ought to be a great- 
grandfather.” Then he turned with the question, ” Where 
is she — the girl?” 

” Her wur turned out, same as I. Her went off with a 
soldier,” gasped the boy. 

” First you, then the soldier, and then the deluge. 
Fifteen come January. How did it happen?” 

” Us wur to a farm. They had nought but two bed- 
rooms, and me and the maid wur put into one. They 
reckoned us wur tu young, but us warn’t,” he said in a 
cunning fashion. 

” Follow this path,” said George abruptly. “Turn to 
the left — this is the left, not that — at the wall of the new- 
take, and you’ll come down to Metheral. Any one will 
show you the road to Wheal Dream.” 


4 


CHAPTER IV 


ABOUT GREGORY BREAKBACK 

Every one knew Gregory Breakback, but he lived apart 
from them all, a lonely, sexless life. His home was upon 
a big shoulder of the moor where it made its last heave 
before falling into the cultivated land. The place has no 
recognised name; some call it Moor Down, but Gregory 
always alluded to it as Moor Gate ; and he was generally 
right where any moorland tradition was concerned. There 
were a few small oaks and a fir-tree or two on the side of 
the down, which was part of Dartmoor but just outside 
the forest ; and among these trees was a ruin, a long, low 
building of loose stones, dragged down by neglect and 
weather, roofless, every bit of planching rotted away. At 
the western end the hand of the restorer had been at 
work. Gregory was the restorer. He had made himself 
one large room, rain- and wind-proof, had contrived a 
sloping roof and covered it with slates which he had 
quarried in the glen of Halstock, had plastered the inter- 
stices between the stones with mud mixed with chopped 
broom to bind it together, and thus had supplied himself 
with a comfortable, if rather unsightly, habitation. It 
was primitive architecture, but that sort is as lasting as 
any. The savage built for eternity with his mud and 
straw, and his walls stand now, defying rain and shaming 
dishonest civilisation. One stone placed upon another 
will remain so for ever without any need of mortar, unless 
some malicious creature pushes it over. Primitive folk 
understand the simple facts of architecture, apply them to 
their own necessity, and obtain a home for nothing. 
Every man could have a house of his own if the law and 
his own instincts permitted him to revert to the healthier 
conditions of barbarism. 


50 


About Gregory Breakback 51 

Gregory referred to the ruin as his castle. He called 
no man landlord, but paid an annual quit-rent to the 
Duchy, a nominal fee for the right to squat. He had no 
master, yet he worked for plenty, and left them curtly 
when they answered him back. He could not stand 
being answered back. He had no companion except Ben, 
a shaggy beast who had been trained as a sheep-dog, and 
remembered his schooling well enough to try and round 
up every sheep he saw about Moor Gate. It was by odd 
jobs that Gregory lived ; he did not mind what the work 
was so long as his employer kept out of the way or was 
decently servile if he appeared. People had learnt to 
understand Gregory. When the frost loosened a hedge so 
that the stones came tumbling out it was necessary to 
draw his attention to the fact in a delicate manner; not 
to tell him to do the repairing. He would have tossed 
the crowbar over his shoulder and said, “ Break your own 
back, master.” He was always using that expression, 
threatening to break the backs of the people, playing upon 
his own name, but meaning nothing, for he had never 
placed his great hands roughly on any man, though he 
had been near it when some fool in liquor had answered 
him back. 

He was a big man in size and strength, not in the 
world’s goods; and great in character without knowing it, 
bearing his hard lot patiently, well aware that it was hard, 
but smiling at it — he was always smiling and swinging 
over the moor with great, loose strides like a mass of 
granite rolling downhill — grateful for health, replying 
warmly to every polite word. That was Gregory Break- 
back, who had made himself a habitation, who lived alone 
without benefit of women, who did all the work that came 
to his hands, who had never owned one single golden 
sovereign in his life. He owed no man a penny; when 
money had to come it came. Gregory smiled at life and 
dared it to break his back. 

How did he come by his name? Nobody wondered, for 
break and broken cropped up perpetually in the surnames 
of Metheral and Downacombe. There was old Willum 
Brokenbrow, for instance, who was a favourite for the 
grave by the porch; and there was Loveday Brokenbone, 
who was coming into prominence by reason of a bronchial 


Heather 


52 

attack which at her time of life might very well end by 
securing for her the coveted burying-place, leaving Willum 
a bad second and Father nowhere. Dame Brokenbone 
was possibly the last woman alive owning to the dainty 
English name of Loveday, which like many others, such 
as Sibella, Petronell, Emblyn, Annys, Penticost, Rabish, 
Flower, Gilian, Pascha, Creature, and Flowery, all of 
them frequent names for girls in registers up to the seven- 
teenth century, have been ousted from country families by 
an endless succession of Bessies and Annies. But as for 
the destructive surnames, Gregory himself had explained 
the matter to George, whom he loved, for the artist lent 
him books, and Gregory, who could read like a clerk, had 
a tenderness for literature. 

“ Well, sir. I’ll tull ye how ’twas. Years ago, avore 
history wur wrote, I reckon, the king in London used to 
send chaps what he had no use vor to work in the tin 
mines, just as the King of Russia sends ’em to Siberia, 
according to what I’ve read. ’Twas to get ’em out o’ the 
way and kill ’em off quiet, vor they hadn’t much chance 
of escaping from the mines, and if ’em tried they wur took 
to Lydford and pressed. Du ’ye know what the Lydford 
press wur like? Wull, I’ll tull ye. ’Twas just an old oak 
door, and they put mun on top of the poor chap, and a 
gurt lump o’ granite atop o’ that, and let ’em bide. When 
he wur pressed they buried ’en and then sat in judgment 
on ’en. If they found ’en guilty ’twas well enough, and 
if they found ’en innocent they said ’twas a pity sure 
’nuff, but mistakes wur bound to happen. That wur fhe 
law, sir, and I reckon there alius has been a lot o’ mad 
dog about the law. I seed a picture in a book yew lent me 
of a woman wi’ a gurt knife in her hand and a cloth over 
her eyes, and underneath was wrote Justice. Wull, sir, 
if yew were to turn a woman loose, wi’ her eyes covered 
and a knife in her hand, she’d stick that knife into the 
first that came along. 

“ ’Twas proper hard in the tin-mines, no shelter, and 
little food, and most of ’em died, they ses. Them who 
served their time got together and reckoned they’d squat 
on the moor and till it. But they wur a wild lot o’ chaps, 
couldn’t agree among themselves, and they got a-fighting 
and killing one another. Them what was left squatted 


About Gregory Breakback 53 

hereabouts to live as best they could, only as they didn’t 
want volks to knaw who they wur they took new names. 
’Twas just after the fight, and one of ’em wur saying 
how he’d broke another fellow’s back, and wur proud 
on’t, so t ’others called ’en Breakback. And another said 
he’d got a rib broke, so they called ’en Brokenbone. It 
went on like that until all the fellows had got new names, 
and they ha’ never been changed from that day to this. 
Most of ’em died rough. They lived by sheep-stealing 
mostly and wur hanged on the oaks of Halstock ; but they 
managed to breed a bit avore they went, or I wouldn’t ha’ 
been telling to yew now.” 

George wanted evidence, but Gregory could only pro- 
duce a roll of parchment, which contained a sort of record 
of the Breakback family, or rather had contained, for 
much of the roll had decayed away entirely, and a large 
portion of the remainder was fragile net-work with the 
ink dropping off in flakes. This roll, valuable only for 
its antiquity, had remained in the family nearly four 
hundred years and by a series of miracles had escaped 
destruction. At the beginning the name of Humphrey 
Odyorne appeared in a thick yellow scrawl, and to this 
Gregory pointed with the remark, ” That wur our name 
avore us took t’other. So my granfer told I, and his 
granfer told he. Us ha’ alius said ’twas Odyorne avore 
it wur Breakback, and I ha’ got as much right to one as 
t’other. That’s right, sir. A true story be powerful hard 
to kill. Bain’t like an old lie what kills itself. Us be 
long livers. If a Breakback dies under ninety he’m nipped 
in the bud sure ’nuff. Death don’t break our backs easy, 
Itullye.” 

George could only agree to all that was said, knowing 
his man. Gregory would stand more from the artist than 
from any one, but even he dared not argue with the strong 
man of the ruin. 

” Wull, sir, there be some queer things wrote on this 
old sheepskin,” Gregory went on. ” I reckon yew 
couldn’t read ’em now, nor me neither; but granfer 
pointed ’em out to I, and he warn’t born this century nor 
yet last, and I mind where his old finger went and what 
he said. Aw, sir, half-a-dozen Breakbacks tak’ ye back 
to Judas Caesar, and the like number of Odyornes avore 


Heather 


54 

’em land ye right into the Garden of Eden among the first 
volk whose surname wur Odyorne vor all yew can tell. 
Here ’tis wrote, ‘ Ursula Breakback gave herself away to 
Anthony Ruddock, a family never worth a louse, but 
stinking and beggarly, ’ They could tell a compliment in 
them days as gude as now. Here there be, ‘ Ahstis 
Breakback lived fourscore years and yet died a maid to 
the great amazement of the world.’ Wull, sir, they 
wouldn’t think so much of she now. I’ve knawed two or 
dree old women what died maidens, but mebbe they 
warn’t plentiful in them days.” 

Gregory did not often produce his parchment. He kept 
if in a chest rolled up inside a piece of cloth, and only 
unrolled it once a year to satisfy himself as to its con- 
dition. It would not be of much interest to the next 
generation, if there was one, for the writing upon it was 
really indecipherable. Said he, ” Wull, sir, us wur gentle- 
folk wance; then us turned traitors and got shoved down 
under. ’Tis wrote on the parchment, though yew couldn’t 
read it now nor me neither, how us lived wance to 
Sheviock which is by St. Germans. I knaws, ’cause I 
walked there and back; and I squeezed out a gurt water- 
blister in Sheviock churchway. There be a little church 
and a gurt big barn close to ’en. A man built the church 
and a woman built the barn ; and the barn cost a penny 
halfpenny more to build than the church, though it be 
twice as large. That be a true story, and if any man ses 
it bain’t I’ll break the back of ’en. Wull, sir, the 
Odyornes came from Sheviock and there be Odyornes in 
Cornwall yet. Du ’ye mind the lawyer gentleman what 
got the writing from they Pethericks? Gurt vules they 
Pethericks. Avore yew come up along I reckon. When 
yew writes your name on a bit of lawyers’ paper ’tis the 
end of independence yew may depend. Wull, sir, this 
gentleman wanted to go fishing and catch trouts as well 
as volks, and I went along to show mun the pools ; and he 
started flip-flapping the watter wi’ a fly, which is a vulish 
way o’ catching trouts and ten times as slow as groping 
vor ’em. So I got telling to ’en first one thing then 
t’other; and presently he ses, ‘I smell Cornish.’ ‘Du’ 
ye?’ I ses. ‘ Yew should breed setters, vor they’d ha’ 
proper gude noses.’ ‘What be your name?’ he ses. 


About Gregory Breakback 55 

‘ Gregory Breakback,’ I told ’en. ‘ Du’ye smell Cornish 
now?’ ‘ Naw, can’t say as I du,’ he ses, puzzled like. 
‘ But I’ll ha’ another try. What be the first number?’ he 
ses as quick as that. ‘ Ouyn,’ I ses, and. Lord love ye, he 
had me. ‘ I smells Cornish worse than ever,’ he says. 
‘ ’Tis a wonder to me your name be Breakback.’ ‘ Wull,’ 
I ses, solemn like, ‘it be Gregory Odyorne tu. ’ That 
made mun jump like a trout. ‘ The devil !’ he ses. ‘ Not 
him, nor his brother, nor yet his granfer,’ I ses, getting 
a bit maggity, vor yew see me and the devil ha’ never done 
much business together. ‘ That be my name,’ he shouts, 
purty near flipflapping that mucky little fly of his into my 
ear-hole. ‘ Bain’t my fault,’ I ses, ‘ but so long as yew 
bide out o’ prison, and don’t get maids into trouble, I 
wun’t be ashamed of ye.’ Wull, sir, us shook hands after 
that, though I’d as soon grope the tail of an eel as a 
lawyer’s hand, vor they’m both cold, jumpy things; but he 
wur Cornish sure ’nuff, if he wur a lawyer, and when all’s 
said God Almighty made the Cornishman last of every- 
thing, when He’d got the experience as ’twere. That be 
a true story, and it ought to be wrote down on the 
parchment. ” 

Pride was Gregory’s failing, and it was pride that kept 
him straight. He did not profess to be better than his 
neighbours, but the feeling was there unrecognised, 
making him abstain from popular vices. He swung his 
great body over the moor to Metheral church every Sunday 
evening, muttering inaudibly to himself during the prayers 
which did not interest him, and shouting the hymns de- 
fiantly, not bothering about the words but greatly enjoying 
a good tune. He went to the inn and sat on a bench 
shouting, being unable to moderate his voice like many 
men of the high moor, who live with their faces to the 
wind, and are accustomed to shout that they may make 
themselves heard, and forget when they descend or go 
under shelter that the effort is unnecessary. He drank 
his beer, but never too much. If he was offered more 
when he didn’t want it his pride rose and he would refuse 
in a surly way. He wasn’t going to make a fool of himself, 
and so he told them. It was a matter of self-respect with 
him, not a matter of morals. The question of right and 
wrong did not enter his mind. He only knew he wasn’t 


Heather 


56 

going’ to exhibit himself in a ridiculous aspect. It was 
the same in everything he did. The self-respect was 
always on the surface, making it impossible for him to 
do himself a moral injury or to take an unfair advantage 
over any man. The same pride had kept him solitary and 
hindered him from walking with women. He knew he 
ought to have done better for himself. A farm, a stout 
building, stock, and money in the bank; these ought to 
have been his instead of a naked ruin in the wind, bare 
and cold. He could not let a woman into the secret, open 
the door and show her earthen floor, chest and table, 
mattress stuffed with heather, the broken hearthstone. 
He would rather have broken his own back. He had 
nothing to offer a woman except his vile body, a splendid 
fabric but unendowed. He could not pass his nakedness 
off with a jest and say there were hundreds like himself. 
His pride was too massive. That was Gregory Break- 
back, whose principal friend, and whose only enemy, was 
Gregory Breakback. 

There was a cage hanging in his window, a small bat- 
tered thing which some one had thrown away and Gregory 
had picked up — but not in daylight — and bent into a sem- 
blance of its original form with his big, agile fingers. 
It had been there for years empty and useless, and George 
often wondered but did not ask questions which might 
have made the strong man shout. “ ’Tis vor the canary,” 
said Gregory one day when he saw the artist’s eyes were 
upon the battered object; and many months later George 
ventured to remark, “You haven’t got the canary yet.” 

“ Wull, sir, I’ll catch ’en one day,” came the answer. 

After that Gregory often mentioned the canary, always 
with a mournful kind of mirth ; and at last the truth came 
out. The canary that he wanted to catch was not a sing- 
ing bird, but a yellow sovereign, a coin which had never 
fluttered into his hand during a life given to odd jobs. 
Half-a-canary he had possessed, although it didn’t stay 
with him long. After a day or two it flapped its bright 
wings and flew away, or, as Gregory plaintively explained, 
“ tored itself into coppers.” The cage was kept in the 
window to remind him of the bird which suggested the 
coin which for some reason or other refused to arrive at 
the ruin of Moor Gate. 


About Gregory Breakback 57 

And yet Gregory was not a poor man as poverty goes 
in quiet corners. He did not sneak into the turnip-field 
for a meal or steal from the pig-trough. He had no money 
certainly, but to a commoner money is not the absolute 
necessity that it is to a townsman. He had his home and 
hill-top on which nothing would grow except heather, 
potatoes, and human beings. He was a Venvill man, 
which is being interpreted a man of liberty, with the right 
to live upon Mother Earth and suck sustenance from her 
bosom ; and with the right to take from the earth all 
things that might do him good except green oak and 
venison, paying nothing for the same beyond the pepper- 
corn rent called a grasewait and those nominal services to 
the Prince’s court as might be required. The hares and 
rabbits of the moor were his ; he could descend to the 
nearest turbary and dig what turves he desired. Under 
such circumstances it is not difficult for a strong man to 
survive if he wants to. Give men the freedom of the 
earth, abolish wire-fences and oppressive notice-boards, 
tear up churlish bye-laws, get rid of the robbery called 
tithe, give the weak adequate protection against tyrants; 
and then those who are men, or who can be made men, 
will live somehow like Gregory, thinking wistfully of the 
canary perhaps, but able to get along without it. You 
will never find a commoner inside a poorhouse unless his 
own vices have brought him there; and very much vice 
is required to drive a free man off free ground. 

Gregory did not possess the comparative affluence which 
is spelt by the monosyllable pig. This would have been 
a sign of poverty if he hadn’t explained that he couldn’t 
be bothered with the creature and had no place for it ; 
but he was usually remembered on the festival when all 
that is spiritual of the pig was gathered to its fathers — if 
indeed any part escapes the pot, for the pig is flesh 
within and without from snout to tail. There would be 
high feeding in every cottage when the poor swine were 
murdered. The joints went to market and were turned 
into clothing. The fry, black-puddings, and various other 
anatomical details supplied the family table with savoury 
meat; while the rest of the animal was salted down 
or presented as gifts to neighbours. Even the bladders 
made playthings for the children. Absolute annihilation 


58 Heather 

must be the lot of the pig if he does not possess a 
soul. 

Gregory had nothing but his dog, for which he was able 
to obtain an exemption order although he had no stock ; 
but it was generally recognised that every commoner had 
a right to one dog free of the tax. He owned no other 
animal and little else, except liberty and the great bar of 
iron which was a wonderful tool in his hands. With it 
he cracked granite and built hedges. It would do any- 
thing; stir the fire or the pot, drive a nail or split a log 
of wood. He was often to be seen striding over the moor, 
the bar of iron, shining like silver at each end, balanced 
upon his shoulder, his other arm swinging like a bell- 
clapper. There was neither clock in the ruin nor watch 
in his pocket; he had never owned such toys and did not 
need them, for he always knew the time of day. Even 
when the sun was clouded over he knew it. The 
mechanism of his stomach marked the hours. 

“ Wull, sir, what du I want wi’ clocks what tear the day 
into hours and minutes?” he said to George. “ When 
it be light I’m out, and when it be dark I goes in under.” 

Gregory did not say how he passed those long nights 
in the one little room at the end of the ruin. He often sat 
there, elbows on knees and head between his hands, think- 
ing and wondering, while the wind beat upon the stones 
and the heather went on struggling. Sometimes he would 
open the door and look around ; there was a tall fir-tree 
like a flag-staff, and nothing else except space and stars 
and that wonderful clean wind. It was the star-lit space 
that troubled Gregory. He couldn’t understand the mean- 
ing of it, but he thought wise men must know and if he 
went on thinking long enough he might arrive at the 
solution too. That was what Gregory had to endure, the 
space, the wind, and the eyes of those stars, common 
things of the hill-top, which, added together, made loneli- 
ness. He was only a rough growth, and he wanted a lot 
of information about the garden and gardener ; and he had 
mind enough to dissect the loneliness though he couldn’t 
find out what it was composed of ; whether there was 
flesh and blood in the making of it, or wind and space, or 
whether it was a mixture of them all. It was strange, 
he thought, that the commoners should not live in com- 


About Gregory Breakback 59 

mori, should have nothing in common except the moor 
and their rights. It was strange that in a small village 
every one should lead a lonely life. At nightfall every 
lighted cottage was like one of those stars, cut off from 
every other star by space. When the inhabitants met to- 
gether they drank or talked, and when they parted it was 
as though they had never met. The life of one was not 
the life of any other. They were like a circle of granite 
stones, made of the same stuff, covered with the same 
moss ; but each one complete in itself, apart from the 
rest; all lonely though so near, cut off from each other by 
the wind. There was something almost terrible in the 
thought that a man might spend a long life in a small 
village, and die at last without ever mingling in the 
common life beyond saying, “How be ye?” or “ ’Tis 
butiful weather that a veteran could toddle forth after 
a period of retirement, and astonish some one into saying, 
“ Why, I thought that old man was dead that even the 
members of one family should be together in one house 
like oil and water, mixed but separate. 

These thoughts could not have occurred to Gregory in 
a town, because the noise would have frightened them 
away ; but upon Moor Gate they increased and multiplied. 
He didn’t know how his own pride, and his secret contempt 
for most of his neighbours, had created the greater part of 
that atmosphere of loneliness which made mist about him. 
Through that mist he saw sometimes — usually when tired 
after a day’s hard work — a ghost bending over the hearth- 
stone in the manner of one making preparations for 
supper, the figure of a woman, nobody in particular, a 
thought, a fancy, a mere vision, but pleasant to the eyes 
and heart. That was the only solution of the great prob- 
lem of the lonely void of space which the gods allow to 
men, had Gregory known it. But he knew only one thing 
— the figure wasn’t there. 


CHAPTER V 


ABOUT A RECTOR AND HIS VISITORS 

In any large town two families may dwell side by side 
from one life’s end to the other and never get beyond 
obvious remarks about the temperature. It is not quite 
the same in lonely parts of the country, where a strange 
face, or even a new suit of clothes, are something of an 
event; but in the matter of complete fusion there is little 
difference. People meet more, talk with each other much 
more, usually until they quarrel, but they seldom reach 
melting-point; their solid selves refuse to become fluid 
and flow together. It is a common mistake among those 
who describe a set of people in some lonely district to 
throw them into the melting-pot, bring them to a state of 
fluidity, and mix thoroughly, causing them to share each 
other’s joys and sorrows and bear each other’s burdens. 
It is not so really. It is such a great event in life when 
two elements find themselves blending that it can never be 
forgotten; for it means friendship, that rare thing. Every 
one has a host of acquaintances, who nod and talk about 
temperatures ; but nobody has more than two friends. 

It is pathetic to see one soul trying to get across and 
reach another which cannot respond ; and still worse when 
each tries and fails, because there are so many obstacles 
in the way, and they cannot find the proper materials for 
making a bridge. 

The sanatorium and Wheal Dream would have been 
entirely apart without that road across the common. 
George looked in at the window as he passed, and for a 
moment felt himself a hundred miles away from his home 
because everything was so different. A few steps more he 
was round a bend in the road and saw the mossy walls 
and rotten timbers of the old wheal and his cold house 

6o 


About a Rector and his Visitors 6i 


above it. He went back to the age of tinners, and their 
ghosts came to supper with him. The patients looked out 
at him and made remarks, not always complimentary, for 
George was an uncouth-looking creature with his loose 
and shabby garments, his flying hair and bushy beard. The 
Twins alluded to him as Father Abraham, because that 
patriarch is generally represented in art as a slovenly 
kind of gentleman with an untrimmed beard. 

George had no friend, and during all those years of his 
life at Wheal Dream he had found only one acquaintance, 
Frank Leigh, the Rector of Downacombe-beside-the-moor. 
George had tried to get at the heart of this man, with a 
view to making him a friend, but so far had failed. The 
parson never left his rose-garden to climb up upon the 
moor. He called himself in jest a prisoner, like the Pope, 
never stirring from his Vatican — he could enter the 
churchyard from his garden — and refusing to do so until 
his right of temporal power should be conceded. Of 
course he did leave it sometimes, but he rarely went 
about the village. It was commonly reported that stones 
had been flung at him once, which, as every respectable 
person said, only showed what a lawless lot of brutes 
the villagers were, as a better and kinder man than Leigh 
did not exist. That was true, perhaps; still, this gentle 
and most lovable man was completely out of touch with 
the life about him, that strange, half-savage life which had 
felt the light of education and had begun to wriggle under 
it and feel its strength. No fusion between pastor and 
people was possible there because the people would not 
melt. They had their grievance, and unfortunately it was 
a real one, for the greater part of Downacombe village 
street or “ town ” was under the domination of Frank 
Leigh, not as glebe but as his own private property. His 
position was a peculiar one; he was the squarson, yet 
without owning the right of presentation to the living, 
which was practically worthless, and to which he had been 
appointed by the bishop at his own request. He had no 
means beyond the income derived from the Downacombe 
property, which amounted to about six hundred pounds 
a year, and thus he was unable to afford those repairs 
which might have been legally demanded of him had 
the property been attached to the glebe. Almost every 


Heather 


62 

cottage along the straggling combe belonged to the gentle 
rose-grower. It meant for the rector a life of ease in his 
beautiful garden ; for the villagers an existence in tumble- 
down cottages. The good things of life were not equally 
distributed in Downacombe, but it was difficult to place 
the blame upon any one; it would certainly have been 
unjust to censure Leigh for accepting what was lawfully 
his. The conditions were harder for Downacombe to bear 
because of its close proximity to the Forest, where people 
were free. There was all the difference in the world 
between being nominal tenants of the Prince and actual 
tenants of Francis Leigh. 

That was why Downacombe hated its pastor though 
he was such a good and kindly man. Six hundred pounds 
were squeezed every year out of the poverty-stricken place, 
and none of the money came back in the shape of im- 
provements to the crumbling cottages ; and only a little 
went into the pockets of local tradesmen. Most of it 
went to pay the hotel-bills and gambling-debts of a gay 
and pretty lady fluttering about the world. 

Still again it would have been unfair to blame the 
rector, who had vowed at the altar to endow his wife 
with all his worldly goods, while he hadn’t made any vow 
to his tenants to prevent their roofs from tumbling on 
their heads. If his wife refused to live with him it was 
not his fault. Certainly the social atmosphere of Downa- 
combe was not exhilarating, but he had thought she would 
amuse herself by renewing the altar flowers and playing 
with her babies. Unfortunately the attraction of the 
altar ceased for Mrs. Leigh after the marriage ceremony ; 
and when her first baby appeared, irregularly formed but 
luckily dead, she declined to have any more. Then she 
went away for a month’s visit to Paris, and the month 
had never come to an end. 

George had walked in the rose-garden fifty times before 
Leigh mentioned his wife. That is the way with these 
quiet men. They hide such secrets in their hearts and let 
the wretched things gnaw until the pain drives them mad 
rather than allow their acquaintances to guess the truth. 
It happened one day that he pointed to a new rose which 
he had succeeded in fixing,” with the remark, ” Maggie 
Leigh — after my wife.” 


About a Rector and his Visitors 63 

“ Very pretty,” said George. “ Is she on the market 
yet?” 

The rector did not answer, but a rather unhappy look 
came over his genial face. He had asked himself that 
same question more than once. As they went on he found 
himself talking about the missing lady. “ She’s a great 
traveller. She bobs up and down all over the map of 
Europe,” he said lightly. “ She sends me a postcard 
wherever she goes, but when I write to the address she 
has gone and my letter chases her into another country. 
We are always playing this game of hide-and-seek. I get 
a postcard with a picture of Notre Dame, and when I 
write to Paris she bobs up in Palermo. I send to Palermo, 
and a picture-card of Milan Cathedral crosses my letter. 
She generally sends me cathedrals. Let me give you a 
rose for your button-hole.” 

“ It’s for her health, I suppose?” said George, dragging 
him back to the subject. 

“ Ah, yes,” Leigh answered absently. “ Downacombe 
never did agree with her.” 

“He’s a liar,” thought George. “ Some day I’ll tell 
him so.” 

But the rector was like a snail, and when his horns 
were touched he shrank back into his shell. The people 
who declared they would not have him to rule over them, 
and yet had to put up with him, did not know what he 
suffered. Leigh was also one of those things growing 
on the roof, and the wind was beating on him^ That rose- 
garden was the result of the intolerable restlessness of 
a lonely man who had nothing to occupy his time. He 
might have buried himself in his study to read theology 
or write a commentary, but what would have been the 
use? Better forget such things and become a gardener, 
and try to bring his mind down to the level of the latest 
rose-manure. The village folk ran after their own shep- 
herd ; the big farmers were for the most part agnostics, 
and the little ones imitated them to the best of their 
ability. Downacombe was a large parish, containing 
nearly a thousand souls who were supposed to be com- 
mitted to his charge. There were two large chapels, one 
at each end of the long street, and there was a small 
burying-ground about one of them, containing tombstones 


Heather 


64 

bearing such inscriptions as “ Converted during the 
ministry of Mr. Scamp,” or ” Brought to God by the 
preaching of Mr. Clogg. ” There were no such inscrip- 
tions in his churchyard, and there was no fiery eloquence 
heard in his church; no sermon to the people by one of 
themselves by earnest Mr. Scamp the blacksmith’s son, or 
fanatical Mr. Clogg, grandson of old Betty, who could 
neither read nor write and found some difficulty in paying 
her weekly rent. These men had no qualifications beyond 
a ready tongue and an earnest manner; they stumbled 
over long words and made havoc of their aspirates, and 
sometimes even translated the Bible into their own dialect ; 
and yet they succeeded somehow. Leigh often saw the 
Wesleyan pastor hurrying by the rectorly garden, always hot 
and eager, always working, not a minute to spare because 
there was some one waiting for him. Leigh felt grimly 
that this man was performing the whole duty which he 
had been placed there to do. The rector watched this 
interloper rushing by, hardly pausing as he greeted a child, 
or shouted in her own tongue to some old crone blinking 
at her door, ” Aw ees, Nanny, I’ll come and read a bit 
o’ the gude Buke to ye avore I goes.” Then he would 
hurry on, while Leigh went back to his roses. 

He always looked out for the patients from the sana- 
torium and welcomed them gladly, even Gumm and Mudd, 
who never went away until they had stuck flowers all 
over their coats. ” May I go and see Mr. Leigh?” was a 
question the doctor was well accustomed to. Every bed- ., 
room contained roses from the garden of Downacombe 
rectory. They would not grow at Metheral because of the 
winds. When the rector heard a noise as of a circus 
entering the place he was prepared to receive visitors; 
and looking up was sure to see two pantomimic heads 
bobbing up and down at the hedge, and to hear the voice 
of Gumm — 

” ’Ullo, parson, here we are again. Didn’t you tell me 
you wanted a man to dig the garden? Well, I picked up 
this little round bloke coming along, and as he said it was 
just his trade I brought him down. Wants fivepence an 
hour and his beer — works out at two bob an hour.” 

” Straw,” said the publican, who was never bashful 
when alluded to, winking at Leigh and poking Gumm 


About a Rector and his Visitors 65 

with his stick. “A few old rags stuffed to look like a 
guy. They forgot to burn it last fifth of November. 
Stick it among the strawberries, and there won’t be a 
bird in the garden in five minutes.” 

” Come in, you rascals,” said the rector, glad even to 
welcome publicans and sinners. ” I hope you are not 
disobeying orders.” 

‘‘Not more than extra,” said Gumm. ‘‘ I generally run 
up against this blight wherever I go. I’m doing my 
duty, which is what the country expects. He’s supposed 
to be going round Sampford lanes, only the farmers object 
’cause he mildews the corn.” 

Then the bloated creatures tumbled into the garden and 
frisked about like gigantic lambs. They didn’t know 
flowers from weeds, and Leigh sometimes took advantage 
of this fact to play a joke upon them. Everything was 
a flower that grew in the garden and a weed that grew 
outside it according to the Twins. They didn’t know 
there was nothing in the garden more beautiful than the 
yellow asphodels and the stag-moss which they trampled 
upon in their walks. 

‘‘ Can we give you a hand, parson?” asked Gumm. 
‘‘ Shall I send the little boy out on the road to scrape up 
sparrow-food?” 

Leigh was ashamed to feel that he laughed at such 
coarse remarks, but he was a lonely man, his life was 
tedious, and the vulgarity of the Twins was more endur- 
able than his own thoughts and the silence of the garden. 
He picked up a spade and handed it to the' speaker with 
the remark — 

‘‘ You may dig me up some tomatoes if you like.” 

The commercial looked puzzled, the publican suspicious ; 
but as no responsibility rested upon Mudd he began to 
deride his companion. 

‘‘ He don’t know what a tomato is. Thinks they grow 
on a tree and you pick ’em like plums. Go on, Jim, there 
they are, all healthy and blooming at your feet. I always 
did say the board schools never taught children anything 
useful.” 

‘‘ Go and saw coke, fathead,” said Gumm. ‘‘ Tomatoes 
are vegetables, same as onions what you were brought up on. 
They grow in the kitchen garden among the cabbages.” 

5 


Heather 


66 

“ Well, let’s go there,” said Leigh in his genial way. 

A long herbaceous border ran down one side of the 
grass pathway, and beyond it were vegetables. Gumm 
gazed in sore dismay at the blossoming perennials, and 
said he’d be blowed if he could see any of the ” round red 
vegetables like sheep’s kidneys ”j while Mudd retorted, 
‘‘They’re under the ground, same as you ought to be, 
and you’ve got to mine for ’em.” 

‘‘ I’ve never done anything in the gardening line, par- 
son,” said Gumm apologetically. Then he stuck the 
spade into the border and turned up a quantity of 
narcissus bulbs. 

“ He’s digging up your onions, parson,” shouted the 
publican. 

Leigh took an arm of each, and led them away, laugh- 
ing gently. He took them to a glass-house and showed 
them a row of tomato-plants which Gumm recognised at 
once and said he knew the parson was getting at him, 
while Mudd began his studies in natural history by 
observing that they were just potatoes ‘‘ growing bottom 
upwards. ” 

Then Berenice would enter the garden, short-skirted, 
brown-booted, and impertinent. The rector looked out 
eagerly for her visits, which were frequent, for the girl 
always wanted flowers. He wondered what she was made 
of. She could not be what she looked, for she seemed 
so strong and she was not; she appeared so friendly, and 
yet if he entrusted her with a message she ignored it and 
said afterwards she had forgotten; there was too much 
froth on the surface, too little depth beneath; the rector 
. At sometimes that if she had been his daughter she 
would have chosen the wandering life of his wife and 
left him to the loneliness of Downacombe. Still she 
brought an odour into the garden, not the fragrance of 
the rose, but a peculiar odour more like that of the 
chrysanthemum. 

‘‘ Here’s a basket this time, because I want some 
flowers for Billy as well. Billy must have pink and white 
roses, so that she can see her own face -every time she 
looks at them. May I go and ravage?” 

That was the way Berenice came to Downacombe, as 
if she owned it. She was one of those handsome young 


About a Rector and his Visitors 67 

women who catch up a man’s heart in their petticoats 
and shake it off with the dust when they go to bed. Bere- 
nice was a girl who lavished her affections upon small 
animals. A pretty little dog represented a far higher type 
of being in her estimation than the most beautiful baby. 
Some day she might require a man to look after her dogs 
and to manage affairs for her, and she hardly knew herself 
the exact position that man would occupy; a little higher 
than the dogs perhaps, but not much; and he certainly 
would not receive the same amount of petting. She had 
not a long memory ; if any one was unpleasant to her she 
soon forgot it; and when some person was extremely nice 
she forgot that too. 

“ I hope you have brought a pair of scissors this time,” 
said Leigh. 

” Not me,” she said. “I’m not a nurse to clank about 
with a chatelaine. When the beastly things won’t be 
picked I screw them round and round and then bite them 
off.” 

” Which is very bad for my roses. Last time I gave 
you the freedom of my garden the destruction was 
terrible; stalkless buds lying about the paths, plants 
dragged up by the roots, bleeding stems everywhere.” 

“They don’t feel anything,” she laughed. 

” But I do; and they feel in their way. They succumb 
to ill-treatment like we do. A gardener understands the 
sufferings of his plants when he goes into the garden 
after a storm or a hard frost.” 

” I have come for flowers, not to hear sermons,” said 
she. ” These destructive hands shall be buried in the 
basket while you perform the surgical operations.” 

‘‘They don’t look destructive,” he said, watching the 
quick movements of her small brown fingers. ‘‘ How you 
girls manage to preserve your hands I cannot imagine. 
Look at mine.” 

They were big, rough, and hard with much digging 
and handling of stones, and yet they were gentler than 
hers. They healed the injuries which her fingers had 
wrought. 

‘‘ We burn the midnight oil at the toilet-table, not over 
books,” she laughed. ‘‘ Give me a lot of that white gauzy 
stuff.” 


68 


Heather 


“ I will, if you say please.” 

“ I won’t. If I pick it myself ” 

” I shall have none left,” he interrupted. ‘‘You must 
cut gypsophila. If you try and snatch a bit the whole 
plant comes away at the root.” 

‘‘If I touched it the root would come up too,” said 
she. 

‘‘No,” he answered. ‘‘It is a long, brown, nerve- 
shaped root, striking tightly into the soil like ” He 

hesitated, glancing at the girl who recalled to him certain 
memories of pleasant walks in that garden before he had 
devoted his soul to rose-culture. 

‘‘ Don’t mind me,” she said. 

‘‘ I was going to say like a man’s soul into a woman’s 
heart.” 

‘‘ I don’t know anything about that. It sounds silly,” 
said Berenice. ‘‘ Love is a tonic to take in small doses 
when you feel run down, just a sip now and then. I don’t 
believe in poisoning your whole system with it. Still 
I should feel very bad if anything happened to Tobias. 
Here are the roses I want,” she cried delightedly. ‘‘ The 
very ones for Billy. You must give me a lot of these.” 

‘ ‘ This is my new rose. I can only spare you one or 
two,” said Leigh. 

‘‘ Do you want them for the church?” 

‘‘ I am going to send a box of them to my wife. It is 
a hybrid which I have just fixed, and I have named it after 
her. ” 

Berenice could not say anything to that. She only 
made a face and thought him foolish for sending his 
treasures to a woman who wouldn’t live with him. Then 
she said — 

‘‘ I promised Billy to bring her back some roses, as 
they won’t grow on the top of our mountain, and she 
loves them so. She spends most of her time in bed, poor 
little thing.” 

‘‘Who is Billy?” 

‘‘ Winnie, our pet patient. Her name is Winnie 
Shazell, but I call her Billy Dimples, which makes her 
cross. She has two dimples, one on her chin, and the 
other on her right cheek, and when you talk to her they 
twinkle in and out. Sometimes I tell her not to be so 


About a Rector and his Visitors 69 

affected, and then she laughs, and they twinkle worse than 
ever. She’s a sweet thing.” 

” How is it she hasn’t honoured me? I thought 
Downacombe Rectory was the paradise of all good 
patients,” said Leigh, while his shears snipped at the 
rose-blooms. 

“She’ll come fast enough when she can. You see she’s 
been dreadful bad, and only goes little toddles in the 
morning, then back to bed again. She would get on much 
faster if she didn’t worry. You’ll send her your blessing, 
won’t you? I’ll put it at the bottom of the basket so 
that it won’t crush the roses.” 

“You may give her my best wishes for her complete 
recovery, and say I shall be very glad when she is able 
to come and see my garden.” 

“You will let her ravage,” said Berenice scornfully. 
“ Winnie could pull up every plant in the garden and you 
wouldn’t say a word when you saw her dimples. You 
would ask her to go on ravaging. These are beastly 
thorny things ! Why can’t you invent a rose without 
prickles?” 

“ Because I am not a creator. We have our thorns 
too,” he reminded her. 

“ I shall have to cut them off. If that child scratches 
her fingers she will cry for hours. You can’t think what 
a baby she is.” 

“ You have a new man, I think,” Leigh went on as he 
packed the basket. 

“ For our sins. A real ogre of a thing, but fascinating 
in a rude, badly-dressed sort of way. I don’t suppose 
he’ll condescend to come and visit you, and if he does he'll 
first impress upon you that you are a worm, and then 
will tell you the Latin name of everything, and if you 
venture to express an opinion of your own he’ll put his 
foot upon you and tread you into the dirt. That’s how 
he treats us. We hate him, and yet he’s fascinating 
rather from a woman’s point of view.” 

“ What we could call a prig?” Leigh suggested. 

“ Yes, a clever prig who has stuffed his head full of 
rubbish until he sees everything from his own narrow 
point of view. Gumm and Mudd tied him into his room 
last night during the rest hour, and when the matron let 


Heather 


70 

him out he went straight over to the doctor with the piece 
of rope, and wanted to know whether the sanatorium 
admitted savages and lunatics as well as invalids, because 
if that was so he thought he had better go. Of course 
doctor had to give the Twins a lecture, but any one could 
see he was disgusted with the sneak.” 

” He is not in orders?” 

” Oh no. One curate is quite enough— you know what 
I mean, because you have met our little Sill, the squeaker 
as Gumm calls him. Two would drive us mazed, as they 
say. Why can’t young curates be men instead of jelly- 
fish? You weren’t like that when you were a curate. I’m 
sure. You didn’t hand a girl her tea-cup with a miserable 
sinner manner, or go about in dearly beloved attitudes, 
and talk like a sick cuckoo.” 

” Order, order,” said Leigh, patting her arm and laugh- 
ing gently. ” The curate is a half-fledged creature, you 
must remember. He grows sense with his wing-feathers. 
Now you must run, for it is eleven. Come again soon.” 

He led her to the gate, watched her out of sight, and 
went back to the rose-walk thinking of his wife and of a 
letter he had just received from her. She wanted more 
money, and he wanted more of her affection, but he could 
not make himself ridiculous by running about after her. 
He loved her in a downright fashion, and now that she 
had gone he thought only of her pleasant ways, her bright 
face, and the style of dress which suited her best. He 
forgot the unpleasant details. It was simply, ” I must 
get away from here for a bit, old man. The rust is 
getting into me;” and his reply, ” Very well, my pretty.’ 
She was a long time getting that rust off — Leigh always 
forgot those other reasons — and in the meantime it was 
eating into him. As for the money, it would have to 
come out of Downacombe somehow, although he knew 
it was useless to raise the rents. Still, there were some 
cottages occupied by folk who wouldn’t pay regularly. 
He could turn them out — they were mostly old widows — 
and procure better tenants. Somehow it did not occur to 
him to wonder what would happen to the evicted, which was 
strange, as he was a tender-hearted man. It was a pity, 
he thought, that the people would not be more submissive, 
more Christian-like, and bear their burdens patiently. He 


About a Rector and his Visitors 71 

did not guess that the burden might be too great, for they 
had never taken him into their confidence, and he didn’t 
understand them. Eighteenpence a week seemed little 
enough for a cottage, even if it was ruinous; but as Bill 
Chown, who was one of the inflamed spirits of the place, 
often declared, “ A little be a lot when us ha’ got nought.” 

” I really think I deserve a medal for Maggie Leigh,” 
said the rector, as he reached the end of the alley and 
stood in admiration before the work of his own hands, 
forgetting all about rents and widows and tumbledown 
cottages. ” She is the queen of the garden, a well-bred, 
haughty queen. Like my little girl — conceit in both eyes, 
pride at her lips ; and on her cheek the dimple of disdain. 
That’s my Maggie Leigh, rose and wife. I like pride in 
well-bred people,” he murmured, with a pleasant smile 
upon his gentle face. 


CHAPTER VI 


ABOUT THE FORD WHICH LIETH ON THE EAST SIDE OF 
ST. MICHAEL’S CHAPEL OF HALSTOCK 

It was a great day in the local calendar; Winnie’s 
perambulations were to begin. The doctor told her to 
walk as far as St. Michael’s Ford, and Berenice was to 
show her the way and see that she didn’t fall down and 
hurt herself. There was not a word to be found in 
Winnie’s mouth the whole time she was out, and her 
guide was to see that she rested an hour beside the river 
before they started back. 

Winnie ought to have been happy at the idea of her 
first long walk, the inference being that her progress was 
satisfactory. Unfortunately the postman came stamping 
up and with great brutality hurled two small thunderbolts 
at her head; and as a result Winnie’s breakfast was a 
moist affair entirely. She had her meals in bed, and as 
she sat up among the pillows her throat swelled and her 
shoulders heaved ; which seemed unreasonable of her, 
because one of the thunderbolts proceeded from her mother 
and the other from her lover. The last terrified her so 
much that she hardly dared to glance at it, and yet it was 
a very amorous letter, containing rather common expres- 
sions perhaps, and alluding to her as if she had been so 
much confectionery, but still it was full of ardent love; 
the sort of letter that a common girl would have gloated 
over and then snuggled under her pillow; but Winnie 
cried over it and then tore it into fragments. The letter 
from her mother was affectionate also, although it struck 
a querulous note now and then. It mentioned that Mr. 
Hawker came to see her very often after his work, 
although she wished he wouldn’t wear his hat on the 
back of his head and pick his teeth in her presence; and 

72 


About St. Michael’s Ford 73 

he was always talking- about Winnie, and how good it 
would be when she was discharged strong and well 
enough to be married. Winnie destroyed that letter too, 
then struggled with fat bacon and potatoes although her 
throat refused to help her in the least, and tears were 
making a regular sop of her pretty eyes. She didn’t want 
to go down to the Ford. She wanted to die because she 
was miserable, but she wanted her mother to die too. 
She was only trying to get well for the old lady’s sake. 

Winnie was one of those helpless, clinging girls who 
do so much good in a rough world by growing round 
some man, bearing blossom and fruit uppn him, while 
keeping him together and holding him up. Such girls 
cannot stand alone; they must cling to something, like 
the wild convolvulus which twines itself about the first 
thing that comes handy merely to save itself from sprawl- 
ing in the mud. The clinging thing cannot choose for 
itself ; it has to accept the support that is offered, prickly 
holly, stinging nettle, or foul-smelling garlic. It is the 
same with the clinging girl, and that is why so many 
sweet creatures are married to brutes. They cannot help 
themselves, they twine about the first man who comes 
within reach, while their poor hearts fly about wildly 
in the air like butterflies beaten up and down by the wind, 
longing for some sheltered flower to rest on. 

Little feet pattered along the passage, Winnie heard an 
excited whine, saw two shining eyes, and the next moment 
Tobias bounded upon her bed and dropped his ball very 
rudely upon her plate. Tail and eyes said plainly enough, 
“ You’re a pretty girl. I love you.” Tobias was a dog 
of character, although his moral qualities would not bear 
looking into. Like so much of the male side of creation, 
he was exceedingly fickle. 

” You oughtn’t to come in here,” sobbed Winnie. 
“The matron will be angry, and Berenice will be so 
jealous. ” 

“What do I care?” said the excited tail and eyes. 
“I’m going to take you down to Chapel Ford presently, 
and we’ll chase bunnies among the furze-bushes.” Tobias 
conceived that the entire system of creation revolved 
about himself. Rabbits had been made that he might 
chase, them, and the pleasant world had been filled with 


74 Heather 

pretty girls to play ball with him. He thought it was 
all very good. 

“ Eat my breakfast, please,” begged Winnie, and 
Tobias obeyed with joyful gulps, nosing his ball about 
the plate until it was left high and dry. Then he picked 
it up tenderly, opened the girl’s little hand with a cold 
and rather greasy nose, and deposited it upon her palm. 

” I can’t throw it, little man,” said Winnie in her 
tired way. She put her arm round Tobias, and he 
snuggled down like the sensible male being that he was, 
and kissed her ear wdth much devotion. 

‘‘I’m such a prisoner,” she said. ‘‘I’m a prisoner at 
home and a prisoner here. The chain of my captivity is 
in that box over there. 1 took it off directly I got here, 
because I couldn’t bear the weight, but whether it’s on 
or off I feel it just the same. I wore it here, Tobias, 
round this finger which is supposed to communicate with 
the heart, and so it does, for it hurts my heart all the time. 

I do so long to be free, doggie, like you. I want to go 
up there, to the top of Cawsand, and lie upon the heather 
and feel the wind beating upon me, and — and have some 
one to help me bear it.” 

Tobias did not comprehend suffering. His life was 
placed in pleasant ways, and his trials were nothing more 
serious than an uncomfortable stomach after a heavy 
meal, and that could be dispelled by judicious rolling upon 
the grass. He thought the little girl was silly, but then 
she was sweet and pretty and was tickling his ears. If 
she was oppressed it was her own fault. She ought to 
snarl and snap and growl at her oppressors, and then 
they would lower their tails and slink away. Such was 
the little dog’s experience, and he claimed to have a 
fairly good knowledge of life. And if her collar hurt her 
she had only to slip it off with her front paws. Tobias 
grunted and observed in his own manner, ‘‘ If you will 
roll over and over a few times and kick as hard as you 
can, and bark a little, you’ll soon be all right again.” 

‘‘ Dear roses and dear dog,” murmured Winnie, smelling 
the one and squeezing the black nose of the other. ‘‘You 
would be the best of companions if you could answer 
me back. Somehow the roses he gave me never seemed 
to smell, but then they were town roses and the smoke had 


About St. Michael’s Ford 75 

spoilt them. I have got to marry him, Tobias, and I 
shall have to live in one of a row of houses, look out upon 
street-lamps, and spend my life between a kitchen and 
a bedroom. He has bought me, and goes on buying me 
every week, and he must have me, although I shudder 
whenever he touches me. His hands are not clean and 
he smells of stale tobacco. Oh, Tobias, take me away 
upon the moor and find me a clean man who will love 
me and not kill me. I want the wind and the heather, 
and I am to be smothered with smoke and dirt.” 

“Time to get up. Miss Dimples. Oh, Tobias, you 
miserable little hound !” 

Berenice appeared carrying a jug of hot water and 
frowning severely at her inconstant companion. 

“ I’ve been looking for him everywhere, calling and 
whistling. And there he lies wagging at me, as if I was 
a mere acquaintance, and making eyes at you. I shall hate 
you soon, Billy. I told old Budge you would capture every- 
thing and everybody directly you got about, and leave 
me nothing to play with, but I didn’t think you would 
steal Tobias.” 

“ He took possession of me,” said Winnie. “ He came 
and jumped on my bed.” 

“ Well, you must have dimpled at him. That’s why 
he wanted me to let him out. He whined and scraped, 
and directly I opened the door he must have come straight 
to you. Poor little dog, what chance has he got against 
a wicked girl with flaxen hair and cornflower eyes and 
dimples as big as saucers?” 

Tobias took not the least notice of Berenice. He gave 
a big sigh and snuggled down again because he was warm 
and comfortable and his position against Winnie’s side 
was quite to his taste. 

“ We have been talking about you all breakfast time,” 
Berenice went on. “It’s a great event your first long 
walk, and if the others could do as they liked they would 
follow in procession. The Twins want to send you off 
with a band, Budge sends you her smelling-bottle lest you 
faint by the way. Halfacre is talking Greek for the occa- 
sion, and the Sill hopes that I shall bear you up lest you 
dash your pretty feet against the stones. He’s going to 
watch our progress with his field-glasses from the top of 


Heather 


76 

Cleave Tor, and of course if we do anything wicked he will 
find it his duty to sneak to the doctor. You mustn’t talk, 
Billy, not a word. I shall smack you if you open your 
mouth. You will love the Ford. It is one of the most 
delicious places that ever dropped out of Kingdom Come.” 

Winnie was soon ready. Her clothing was scanty and 
light, and one good shake began and ended the toilet of 
Tobias. She was going down to the Ford which in 'the 
old day led towards the chapel of St. Michael, and is now, 
as then, a line of smooth stones set in the bed of the 
Okement river. The water is a wonderful colour there, 
under the shadow of the small and ancient oaks, green 
in parts and sometimes purple, and there is always a 
lace-like pattern of foam upon it which lengthens as it is 
drawn down towards the cataracts and little islands beyond 
where the river tries to become fierce and makes won- 
derful noises between walls of black stone. It is a magic 
spot, one of the soft places on the moor, and it suggests 
the tender side, happy life without passion, warm blood 
without lust in it, pleasant wind and not storm. It is 
well sheltered beside the river which separates the moor 
from St. Michael’s Wood; on the one side the granite and 
furze; on the other a big precipice dripping with water, 
hanging with fern-fronds — six feet long are the fronds of 
St. Michael’s ferns, and his bracken grows to a height 
of ten feet — overgrown with a waving mass of oaks and 
flowering trees, the soft, maidenly birch clad in silver and 
the rowans like brides smothered in bouquets. Somewhere 
above that wet garden the ruins of the chapel are lost, 
and the steep path to it covered with water-washed pebbles 
is almost lost too. Down that path and across the Ford 
has passed the whole pageantry of Dartmoor history. It 
was passing there before the little town of wattled huts 
near the mouth of the Thames was built, and long before 
Irish monks came to light the lamp of a new religion. 
It was passing there when Caesar fell at the foot of 
Pompey’s statue. Roman agents must have crossed there, 
wondering what was the latest prank of mad Nero or 
guzzling Vitellius. Keen, bearded Jews must have crossed 
cursing the name of Titus. Danish freebooters crossed 
on their destructive mission; they had Lydford town to 
burn, a greater place than London. After them came 


About St. Michael’s Ford 77 

English history, tinners and tyrants, Kings and Earls of 
Cornwall across St. Michael’s Ford; and their feet as 
much as the waters in flood have worn those stones 
smooth. The dweller on Dartmoor forgets all that, and 
remembers only the feet of those who came bringing good 
tidings, his charter of liberty, his title to his home ; the 
men who made the boundaries, who settled what was 
within and what was outside, who beat the bounds and 
appointed the line of the Forest. It was at the Ford of 
St. Michael’s that the Perambulators finished their long 
and dangerous journey. It is to them that the mind turns, 
to the men of peace bearing the charter, written partly in 
Latin, partly in Norman-French, granted them by the King. 
The report of that perambulation is the Prince’s title-deed 
to the Forest of Dartmoor and the Magna Charta of his 
tenants still. 

There is nothing in the whole parish of Lydford much 
finer than the cleave of St. Michael of Halstock. From 
the summit of its tor, which, to be strictly accurate, is 
outside the Forest, the oaks below look like toy trees, the 
river is a thin white thread, the huge slabs of rock are 
mere pebbles. When the moon comes up over the rocks 
which arc piled like the ruins of a city eastward, the place 
becomes Cleave Dream. The atmosphere is thick with the 
heavy light which the wind seems to blow to and fro, 
and from the summit of the tor, which thrusts a spur 
into space, there can be heard the movements of the 
haunters ; first the beetles booming through the mist, then 
the river sliding down its bed of rock and the foliage 
whispering. The nightjars make the most noise, and 
though they are not musical they suit the moonlight ; with 
harsh metallic cry they suggest the tinners working down 
there; and as one listens the sounds become a rattling 
as of mail, a clanking of swords, an iron hand striking a 
stone; and then, where the white river moves so fast as 
to appear motionless, shining figures walk from among 
the oaks and follow each other across the Ford. That 
knight in front, who crosses first and rings his fist upon 
the flat stone beside the water, claiming great Dartmoor 
as his own, is “ the beloved brother, our Richard, Earl of 
Cornwall,” and his followers are Henry de Mereton, 
Harnelin de Eudon, Robert de Halyun, and William le 


Heather 


78 

Pruz, bloody men of battle in their day, but in our own 
quiet ghosts, having received benediction in the chapel 
on the crag, and going upon their harmless way towards 
the moonlit rocks across some of the oldest stepping-stones 
in history. 

Winnie and her guide were early at the Ford, but some 
one was there who had already worked three hours. 
George had come when the moor was wet and silvery, 
bearing a huge canvas which the breeze caught like a 
sail. There he was painting in his usual energetic way, 
unconscious of anything except what was before him, only 
pausing to take a big pinch of snuff, or cram a bit of cake 
into his hungry mouth, or running down to the river to 
dip his shaggy head in. Then he would shake himself 
like a dog, blow the drops from his beard, and dash 
at the picture as if he meant to knock a hole in it. He 
was thoroughly happy at his game, for it was nothing 
more. It was not business. But Halstock Cleave and 
Wheal Dream were a thousand times better than all the 
Art Schools of London, and painting dream-pictures for 
nothing was far more satisfying than working at some 
simpering portrait, and exaggerating charms which were 
probably not there at all, for a handful of sovereigns. 
He had a good heart and a good brain had George Bruna- 
combe, only he couldn’t find himself. He sang in a deep 
voice, and whistled like piping Pan, and talked in old 
English, with many a certes and forsooth and gramercy, 
to the figures on his canvas. He didn’t hear the ladies, 
as they were not talking, and it was not until Tobias 
charged at him with overwhelming friendliness that he 
perceived his solitude was spoilt. 

“ Gadzooks, little flesh-and-blood dog,” he muttered. 
” Thou hast broken my dream, I warrant ye.” 

” Good-morning, Mr. Brunacombe,” cried Berenice. 

George turned and bent his awkward body, having no 
hat to raise, but for a few moments he said nothing. So 
here she was, the fragile spirit who came to Wheal Dream 
and sat and sighed among its ruins, looking so sad and 
longing. He had been afraid she might slip, fall upon 
a rock, and break all to pieces underneath his window. 
The first day he made up his mind she was a ghost, and 
wondered why he wasn’t frightened. She was the girl 


About St. Michael’s Ford 79 

who loved the spadiard and had come back just to visit 
the old place which had given her the happiness which 
her soul desired. She didn’t want tin; she had never 
wanted that. It was love she sighed for. He was the 
modern spadiard working at Wheal Dream, drawing out 
of it metal, not with a spade, but with brush and pen. 
Then she was gone, and he heard Ursula gamboling 
among his crockery; but the next day she came to haunt 
the place again in the same sad and longing way. He 
expected her to melt into the heather. And here she was 
in the flesh, though not much of it, the same fragile 
dream-girl with the soft, heather-blown face, the sad eyes, 
pathetic mouth, and the fair mist of hair which kept on 
playing hide-and-seek with her ears. 

“This is Winnie Shazell. She may nod if she likes, 
but she mustn’t say a word,” said Berenice. 

What a preposterous idea it was to give her such a name 
or indeed any name. George knew better than that. She 
came out of the heather of Wheal Dream, and she would 
go back there presently. 

Winnie took advantage of the permission and nodded; 
and, what was far more serious, she smiled. 

“ There she goes with both dimples,” said Berenice 
to herself. “ Come here, Billy. Sit down on that stone 
and stir not at your peril. We can’t help intruding, 
Mr. Brunacombe. Our orders are to sit here for an 
hour. ” 

George had his back towards them and was pretending 
to paint, only his hands were not steady. He was an 
awkward and a nervous man. He thought she must be 
criticising his shabby garments, laughing at his shaggy 
head and bushy beard, poking fun at his boots which were 
laced up with string, and the reed basket containing his 
humble luncheon stuffed there with all manner of other 
things. But Winnie was doing nothing of the kind. She 
was looking at the big canvas, and her pretty lips were 
parted in a child-like admiration. 

“ How did you get down here with all those things?” 
Berenice asked. 

“ The easel goes in a hole among the rocks of the 
moon — over there,” said George, pointing with his mahl- 
stick. “ I call ’em that because the moon seems to shoot 


8o 


Heather 


out of them as if she lived there. You ought to be down 
here then. It’s fine, I can tell you. I carry the canvas 
and paint-box when there’s no wind to speak of.” 

” Tell us what the picture is about.” 

” Why, it is ” began Winnie, when she was seized 

and scolded. 

“How dare you talk, Billy! If you say another word 
I’ll put you into the river and drown you.” 

George smiled, and his hands grew steady again. He 
knew what Winnie was going to say. She recognised 
the subject and understood a part of it; and he felt that 
she might be understanding the painter too. The spirit 
of the moor was in her, and she saw his visions and could 
dream his dreams. She had not been looking at his old 
clothes and untidy beard, after all. Her eyes were upon 
his finely-shaped hands and the work which was growing 
under them. He shifted the easel round and stood half- 
facing the girls as if he had been a school-master about 
to give them a lesson with a blackboard. His profile was 
clearly defined against the dark background of the rocks 
of the moon. Winnie was looking at his head and 
wondering where she had seen anything like it before, 
until she remembered a book of old wood-cuts in her 
mother’s possession which contained the portrait of Albert 
Durer, by himself. 

“It’s a picture of the Ford. But who are the Lord 
Mayor’s Show figures crossing the stones?” said 
Berenice. 

“They are the Perambulators,” said George, address- 
ing Winnie. 

“I thought they were meant for men. What is the 
difference between a perambulator and a mail-cart?” said 
Berenice flippantly. 

“They are the knights summoned by Henry the Third 
to determine the boundary of the Forest,” George went on. 

“ No history, please. I hate it, and Winnie hates it 
too, only she mustn’t say so. We want romance.” 

“ Well, this is, true romance for us west-country folk.” 

“ Do tell us,” said Winnie impulsively, her soul for- 
getful of discipline; but Berenice soon gave her cause to 
remember. 

“ Give me that rag, Mr. Brunacombe,” she cried, “ the 


About St. Michael’s Ford 8i 

filthy one covered with paint. I want it to tie round this 
girl’s mouth.” 

Winnie put a hand into her companion’s lap with a 
pleading gesture, and whispered, “ I won’t do it again.” 

‘‘ Very well, you shall be forgiven. But if you do offend 
the third time no mercy shall be shown you. Now you 
can go on with your story, Mr. Brunacombe. Sit down 
on one of the stones. You’re so restless while you’re stand- 
ing. Tell us first why you have painted the Ford just as 
it is now. I don’t know any history, but I have an idea 
that Henry the Third lived several years ago.” 

” What has happened to change it?” said the artist-poet 
as he seated himself opposite them, although even then 
he was restless, and kept twisting and turning. ” Eight 
hundred years ago it was the same as it is now. Cen- 
turies don’t alter water and granite. I have painted what 
I see before me, down to the asphodels on that little island 
and the lichen on that rock ; and then I jump back to the 
Middle Ages for my figures. That’s the way to work. 
Nothing changes on the moor; men are the same; it’s 
only a matter of clothes,” he said, shaking his shabby 
coat and comparing it with the graceful drapery of his 
thirteenth-century knights. ” These are not characters of 
fiction,” he went on, jumping up and running at his 
picture. ” They are men of history who have given their 
names to places upon the moor. This knight who has just 
reached that very stone on which you are now sitting, rest- 
ing his foot upon it and pointing up the cleave, is William 
de la Brewer; and the two behind who are racing for the 
last stepping-stone are Guido de Brettvill and William de 
Wydworthy. The tall knight just about to cross is Hugo 
de Bollay, and near him is Richard Giffard, pickipg and 
eating blackberries and joking with the priest who has 
just said mass to them in St. Michael’s chapel above. ‘ We 
men of war have to eat what we find,’ he says, ‘ while you 
jolly priests live on fat venison.’ Critics would condemn 
that,” said George fiercely. ‘‘They would say black- 
berries didn’t grow in those days, and if they did knights 
wouldn’t condescend to eat them. The king himself would 
have picked the blackberries of Halstock. They are as 
big as strawberries, and they were just as fine eight 
hundred years ago. Look at the Perambulator behind 
6 


82 


Heather 


whose name tradition hasn’t handed down to us. He 
means to have a go at the berries when big Giffard 
has done sprawling over the brambles. He’s tired and 
hungry, and won’t be sorry to get to Westminster and tell 
them at court about the savages of wild Dartmoor. At his 
shoulder is Odo de Treverbyn looking at the antlers of a 
stag which he has found in the grass; and here, coming 
down the steep path leading from the chapel — that path 
is there if you know where to look for it — is William 
Trenchard, assisting Philip Parrer, who has hurt his leg ; 
while close to them is Nicholas de Heampton, or High- 
ampton, cutting an ash stick with his sword. Behind them 
you can just see William Morleigh and the last of the^ 
Perambulators, whose name is in some doubt. They are 
sliding down the path laughing like school-boys. These 
are the twelve who appointed the boundaries of the Forest 
that they should never be moved at any time.” 

” You tell a story nicely, if you wouldn’t jump about 
so,” said Berenice, while Winnie went on staring at the 
picture in simple delight. ” I had no idea history could 
be made so modern. You might paint better-looking men, 
though.” 

” Ah, you think the knights of old were always hand- 
some, and princesses beautiful,” said George rather cynic- 
ally, as he returned to his stone. ” Critics think so too, 
and that is another point where I fall foul of them. If you 
take any twelve men you won’t find more than a couple 
of handsome faces among them; and these knights had 
been a long journey, and had a precious hard time among 
the savages, I can tell you. It’s not likely they would be 
finishing the Perambulation with their best court faces.” 

” Where did they begin?” asked Berenice. 

“At Cawsand, which you look at from your windows. 

I have followed their tracks and taken two weeks over it, 
though it is not always easy to find a place by the names 
given in the records, of which there are two. The first 
Perambulation was made under a commission given by 
Henry the Third to his brother, Richard Earl of Cornwall 
in 1240, which is the Prince’s title-deed to the Forest; and 
the second, which was not really a perambulation at all 
but a presentment of twenty-five jurors, was given at a 
Survey Court in 1609. This is written in English, while 


About St. Michael’s Ford 


83 

the Perambulation itself is in Norman Latin. The original 
is lost, but there are several copies extant, none of which 
exactly agree. Places appeared to change their names in 
a marvellous fashion in the old days.” 

‘‘That’s enough history. Let them march,” said 
Berenice. 

‘‘ Here they go, then,” said George briskly. ‘‘ After 
leaving Cawsand they made beside Raybarrow Pool to 
Hound Tor, which they called the Hill of Little Hound Tor. 
Their next point was Thurlestone, which is the tracker’s 
first difficulty; the jurors in the sixth year of oiir most 
gracious sovereign, Lord James, got over it by supposing 
this to be Watern Tor; but they were wrong, for that tor 
lies well towards the west and the track of perambulation 
goes eastward. The explanation is easy enough ; there 
are numbers of Thurlestones, Highstones and Longstones 
about the moor, which were always probably nothing more 
than boundaries, though men with long heads and narrow 
brains declare they are the remains of Druidical mysteries ; 
but according to them every bit of stone on the moor has 
some special religious significance, and every hole in the 
rocks was made for what they call lustration, or for receiv- 
ing the blood of some miserable victim. Some of them 
admit that the Longstones have been boundary posts for 
centuries, but before then, they declare, they must have 
been used for purposes of religion.” 

‘‘This is guide-book talk. It’s not interesting,” cried 
Berenice, though Winnie’s eyes said it was. It was the 
atmosphere of the moor and the wind across the heather. 

‘‘ This particular Thurlestone must have tumbled down 
or been broken up and built into some commoner’s wall 
centuries ago,” George went on. ‘‘ The trackway is plain 
enough along the East Wallabrook to the point where the 
West joins it, and on to where the united rivers fall into 
the North Teign at Walbrook Bridge, which is just on 
the other side of Scorhill with its stone remains. There 
what is called the North Quarter ends, and our knights 
took a rest and drank what they could get, which was only 
Teign water, but the best and purest water in the world, 
and no doubt they wished tobacco had been discovered. 
A man of Devon gave tobacco to England, a man who 
knew Dartmoor well, and was also the greatest man who 


Heather 


84 

ever lived. Devon gave England tobacco, her navy, and 
Walter Raleigh; and she taxed the tobacco, appropriated 
the navy, and cut off Raleigh’s head. When the Peram- 
bulators had rested they went on to Castor Rock, and to a 
Highstone which was later called a Longstone, and has 
only been destroyed recently, that is to say within the last 
century; and then to a Longstone by Fernworthy, which 
was later called a Highstone, and was destroyed long ago. 
And so across the South Teign to the marshes which the 
record alludes to as Aberesheved, a name which appears 
nowhere else; the later jurors use the expression, ‘the 
fenny place now called Turfhill. ’ Aberesheved or Turf- 
hill was a turbary, a place where the peat was good, and 
when it became forsaken by the turf-cutters its name was 
dropped and lost. They made straight through the middle 
of the turbary to the little hill which they called Furnum 
Regis, and is still known as King’s Oven. The trackway 
now is clear to any one. It runs by the Wallabrook, not 
the one that falls into the Teign, for that is miles behind ; 
the Wallabrooks are endless, and were originally Wallow 
Brooks, probably because travellers had to wallow in 
them. This one rises near King’s Oven and falls into 
the East Dart, which they called the Easter Dert, and the 
track runs along the east side of the brook beside 
Ephraim’s Pinch and beneath Yar Tor. They allude to the 
source of the Wallabrook as Wallebrokeshede, which 
sounds rather like Willie broke his head. You see, they 
had plenty of water.” 

” I expect they had bottles of sack with them. Soldiers 
wouldn’t drink water unless they were dying of thirst,” 
remarked Berenice, wishing Winnie wouldn’t stare so. 
‘‘Weren’t there any Rising Suns or Plumes of Feathers 
in those days?” 

‘ ‘ There are not any along the track even now. You 
must drink water or remain thirsty. They continued the 
East Quarter by ‘ the Wallabrook until it falls into the 
Dart, and so by the Dart until another Dart, and so by 
another Dart rising up towards the foot of the Okebrook,’ 
as the record has it in its quaint Latin. They seem 
to have been rather confused by the East and West 
Darts.” 

‘‘ After drinking water they saw four Darts,” said Bere- 


About St. Michael’s Ford 85 

nice. “ If you could have searched the grass behind 
them you would have found plenty of broken bottles.” 

“ Be that as ’twull,” said George, with his big school- 
boy laugh. ” They continued by the East Dart, crossing 
what is now the road between Two Bridges and Ash- 
burton, and passing Dartmeet they went up along West 
Dart and reached the foot of the Okebrook, called also the 
Oldbrook and Wobrook; and it was here the East Quarter 
ended. The next point is Drywork, as the Perambulation 
calls it ” 

“ They must have found it so,” came the interruption. 

” Or Drylake, as the later jurors name it. Just where 
that particular place is I don’t know, you don’t know, and 
nobody knows, as our vicar says in his sermons, but 
remains of tin mines abound in that part, and the name 
probably refers to a settlement of tin-streamers. Then 
across Creffield or Driffield Ford, which is where the road 
between Princetown and Holne crosses the Okebrook, and 
from thence to Battishill, Cattishill, or Gnattishill, which 
is certainly Knattleborough ; and then to the head of yet 
another Wallabrook, but a very small one this time, and 
down the stream until it flows into the Owne, Aven, Avena 
or Avon, as it is variously styled; then by Eastern White- 
borough, which is another hill, to Peter’s Cross a little to 
the south of the Abbot’s Way, to the Redlake where it 
flows into the Erme, and up the Erme to its source, which 
is called Grimsgrove; and on to the head of the Plym, 
where the South Quarter ends.” 

” With popping of corks as before,” said the commen- 
tator. 

” Well, they deserved a rest, for they had finished more 
than half their journey. The trackway is plain enough to 
Elysburghe, which is now the little hill of Eylesburrow, to 
Siward’s Cross, now always called Nun’s Cross; and from 
there to Little Hisworthy, which is Hessary Tor, but was 
called Ysfother by the Perambulators, then to Mis Tor and 
Mis Tor Pan, names which, like Hound Tor, have not 
changed from the thirteenth century to this day. The line 
crosses the Walkham to Deadlake Head, which has departed 
a long way from its old name of Mewyburgh, and the next 
boundary mark is Lints Tor, now corrupted into Lynx, 
and anciently known as Lullingset. Here the West 


86 


Heather 


Quarter ends and the trackway makes for the Tavy, at 
that point where it is joined by the Rattlebrook, to which 
the Perambulators gave in effect the name of Racketing 
Brook. The boundary lies beside the brook to its head 
at the foot of Amicombe Hill, and there we enter a more 
civilised part of the moor, where boundary walls have been 
thrown down and Longstones broken up. Our knights 
are getting near the end of their journey. They cross 
Sourton Common, the West Okement river, and so 
beneath Yes Tor, which in those days was kn(»wn as 
Ernestorre. You know where they are now, coming down 
towards St. Michael’s Chapel to complete their big circle; 
and here they are on my canvas, crossing the Ford which 
lies at the east side of the chapel.” 

” Thank you,” said Winnie disobediently. 

” However can you remember it all?” cried Berenice, 
ignoring the pretty culprit on this occasion. ” My head 
would burst if I tried to cram half those names into it.” 

” I have tramped Dartmoor for years with its records in 
my pocket. It’s easy to remember when you are inter- 
ested,” said George simply. ” I don’t suppose any one 
takes an interest in the Forest boundaries except from a 
selfish point of view, and so nobody tries to trace the line 
now. Of course, the Forest boundaries and the Dartmoor 
boundaries are two very different things. It would be a 
great pleasure to me to go round with some one who did 
care,” he muttered. 

” What are you going to do with the picture?” 

‘‘ Put it in the mine house, look at it for a year or two, 
then cut it up some day when I’m short of canvas. My 
dream-pictures don’t sell,” he said with a defiant gesture. 
‘‘ Perhaps it will come in handy to stop a broken window.” 

‘‘If it was mine I should send it to the Duke, with a 
note saying I did it all my own self, and didn’t he think 
it rather clever? Then, if he was graciously pleased to 
accept the same, think how famous you would be.” 

‘‘ I don’t do business in that way,” said George. 

” Don’t you find it hard to fill in your time?” 

He stared at the careless young woman in amazement, 
wondering if she meant it, then broke into his big laugh 
and said— 

‘‘I’m always grumbling at the sun for exceeding 


About St. Michael’s Ford 87 

the speed limit. I paint while it is light and write doggerel 
after dark. As a recreation indoors I etch a plate, carve 
in wood, work in metal, mend my clothes or a table, frame 
a picture, or bind a book. When I’m too tired for any- 
thing else I knit stockings. Outside I do my garden, 
attend to my bees, follow some old ridgeway when I want 
exercise, add to my collection of cellular plants, pick up 
details for my history of tin mining. It’s an eighteen 
hours’ day at the sign of the One-legged Owl. Meals are 
dotted here and there in the shape of commas, not often 
as full stops. Just now I’m writing a novel when my real 
day’s work is over. It’s a busy firm. Bubo and Bruna- 
combe, unlimited; and when a guinea comes of it all we 
put in another hour to celebrate the event.” 

There was a little bit of bluster in all this, for George 
was proud of his accomplishments, but it did not appear 
upon the surface. Indeed, his tone was deprecatory and 
his manner apologetic ; and suggested, what he never could 
teach himself, that he was a fool not to concentrate his 
energies upon some particular form of art. He could not 
realise that none of the forms of art are necessary, that 
the author and artist are not admitted to audience until 
butcher and baker have been presented. The man with 
book or picture is very far down in the table of domestic 
precedence. The sweep jostles him from the door, and 
even the cats ’-meat man goes in ahead of him. The sweep 
may do his work badly, but he is employed for all that ; 
while the artist who has done his work well is not even 
asked to call another day. He deals in luxuries, and such 
things are not considered until the dog has been given 
his biscuit and the cat her horseflesh. That is why the 
man who deals in luxuries cannot afford to be a general 
merchant ; he must specialise or become bankrupt. When 
supply exceeds demand only the best goods are likely to 
be looked at; and such goods are produced by the speci- 
alist. There is not much between mediocrity and talent; 
merely a decimal point called application. 

” Well, Billy, we must go. Take my arm and be towed 
heavenwards;” and Berenice nodded to the artist and 
pulled Winnie off the stone. George was burrowing in his 
basket, flinging out cake and hard-boiled eggs, picking 
out sprigs of heather in bloom, some white, others just on 


88 Heather 

the blush. He gathered them into a bunch, approached 
Winnie, and put out his hand with a queer lumbering 
movement. 

“ Picked it early this morning as I came across from 
Wheal Dream. There’s plenty if you know where to 
look,” he said brusquely, almost as if he was asking her 
to accept something objectionable. 

Nothing could have delighted Winnie more. White 
Heather was more desirable than all the artificial roses of 
Downacombe. The roses would drop their petals and be 
dead in a day; but the heather is a thing that endures. 
She put out her hand and encircled the bunch with her 
fragile fingers. That heather was full of the wind and the 
light of the moor, the searching wind and piercing light; 
it had bathed in moonlight and fed upon unpolluted air ; 
its roots had sucked life from fragrant peat. It was the 
manna of the wilderness. There was no sickliness in 
those blooms, no hot-house flavour, no suggestion of 
stiff white sheets and blinds drawn down in the heather, 
which is the symbol of health and liberty, of strong wind 
and pure light, of open places and the loneliness of the 
hills. Winnie took the dream flowers and knew they 
would not die. Like her they were fragile, but they bore 
the rough life, and more, they could hardly exist without 
it. Removed from the wind to the valley they would 
wither; touched with the smoke they would die. She put 
a finger to her lips; that was all; she didn’t even smile, 
but her eyes said several things. 

Berenice was cross, and her arm played the part of tow- 
line rather too vehemently. She was half in love with 
Winnie, just as other girls might have loved a pretty boy, 
and she didn’t like her to receive tokens of regard from 
any one else, especially when such tokens so pointedly 
disregarded herself. She wanted good luck as much as 
Winnie, and George ought to have divided the white 
heather between them. And there was Winnie nibbling 
at the flowers as if they had been something nice, and 
nestling her nose among them as if she had forgotten 
they had just come out of a dirty basket among rags and 
paints and a poor man’s luncheon. “Give me some, 
Billy,” she said tauntingly. 

Winnie was sweetness itself. She picked out a sprig. 


About St. Michael’s Ford 89 

one of the whitest and best, and held it out, yet more 
from a sense of obedience than because she wanted to 
part with it; and at the same time she said in a quiet, 
determined sort of way — 

“ He’s a genius. ” 

“ He’s nothing of the kind,” said Berenice. ‘‘If he 
was a genius he would dress himself decently and get his 
hair cut. And please remember you are not to talk.” 

‘‘ I don’t care,” said Winnie. They had reached the 
top of the cleave, and she was able to breathe again. 

‘‘ Will you be quiet? I shall tell doctor you were chat- 
tering all the time.” 

‘‘ Sneak,” whispered Winnie. Then she subsided, and 
was good for several minutes, while Berenice whistled 
and told Tobias a few disparaging things about George, 
one of which was that he was a conceited prig who 
thought he could do everything, when his want of success 
in life showed plainly that he wasn’t any good at all. 
This provoked criticism from the other side in this form, 
‘‘ He’s the cleverest man — no, don’t pinch me — and he 
paints divinely. Oh, Berenice, you hurt.” 

At the gate of the sanatorium Berenice’s sprig of 
heather dropped out of her blouse unperceived, and fell 
upon the path for any one to find. A few minutes after- 
wards Halfacre passed in somewhat late from his walk 
and paused to pick it up. While he was looking at it a 
comic voice proceeded from the window space just above 
his head, asking anxiously, ‘‘ What’s the name of that? 
Do tell us, for I take such an interest in botany.” 

Halfacre did not possess the slightest sense of humour, 
and could not perceive that the Twins were always trying 
to draw him. He wallowed so deeply in his knowledge 
and in the conceit of it that chaff was lost upon him. 

‘‘ It is an exogenous plant,” he said in his heavy style, 
while Gumm began to grin. ''Erica tetraliXy so called 
because its leaves cross one another, vulgarly called 
heather. ” 

Then he drew the sprig into his coat and walked on, 
while Gumm rocked himself to and fro in vulgar joy. 

That afternoon Halfacre was sent to Wheal Dream. As 
he returned he met George coming from the Ford, balanc- 
ing the big canvas on his head, and whistling like a 


Heather 


90 

ploughboy. Painting time was over and writing time 
had come. He stopped when he saw Halfacre and said 
cheerily, “ Glad to see you about. I’m George Bruna- 
combe, the cheap-Jack artist. Hope you’re getting on. 
You’ll soon be well here. I see you’ve found a place where 
the white heather grows,” as he glanced, a little suspici- 
ously, at the sprig in the other’s coat. 

” One of our ladies found some this morning,” said 
Halfacre in his supercilious tones. 


CHAPTER VII 


ABOUT JARS 

By their noises the inhabitants of a house may be judged. 
If it is quiet while the lamplight remains in the window 
one may reason that the couple within are at least civil to 
one another. If the sounds suggest a game of profes- 
sional football it may be inferred that matrimony is taking 
its not unusual course when people live in a lonely place 
and see too much of each other. Men and women must 
quarrel according to their nature. Educated people argue, 
which is a polite way of quarrelling. The half-educated 
form themselves into cliques to aEuse any and every other 
clique. Folk at the bottom of the scale, who have no 
education at all and are accustomed to act in a simple and 
straightforward manner, throw each other about. In 
such a quarrel there is no misunderstanding. 

When George first came to Wheal Dream he was always 
running to the window under the impression that the only 
commandment of importance was being broken; but he 
soon discovered that yells and threats did not mean 
murder. The Pethericks had to fill in their time somehow, 
and their small talk consisted in reviling one another. 
They called each other dogs of various kinds, but they 
were ready in a moment to unite against a common foe, 
such as Uncle, and to specify him as a dog of the very 
worst type. What could they do with themselves when 
the cows had been milked and the cream scalded if they 
didn’t talk? They could not read; there was no comfort 
in their dirty kitchen, and the parlour was a place they 
might not enter; they were tired, and evening is the time 
for recreation. So the whisky was uncorked — they were 
big folk these Pethericks, and had got beyond beer — and 

91 


Heather 


92 

after a glass or two they felt in the mood to destroy the 
peace of Wheal Dream by slandering all creation. 

A narrow passage led up to the kitchen, and in the 
middle of the passage stood Uncle, the lamplight just reach- 
ing his ugly face, leaning upon his sticks and listening in 
a patient kind of way. He wanted to get back and read 
his Bible, only John stood between him and the outer 
door. Ursula was in the kitchen, and near her was Father 
seated upon a heap of potatoes, appreciating what was 
going on. The place was full of peat smoke, which was 
wafted from the big open fireplace by the gusts of wind. 
The back wall, built against the side of the gorge, was 
green with copper which had soaked through the stones, 
and the stone floor, which had not been scrubbed for years, 
was thick with dirt. Unpleasant beetles were crawling 
about, and a pile of rags, thrown in a corner many months 
before and not touched during the hot weather, had become 
a breeding-place for lice. It was strange to think that 
human beings could live there and deliberately make the 
place filthier. The wettest and most mossy part of the 
wheal, even deep down among the old rafters in a horror 
of darkness, where the water ticked off the seconds and 
hart’s tongue ferns held out their clammy fronds like a 
drowned man’s fingers, was at least as comfortable, and 
probably far more healthy, than the kitchen of the 
Pethericks. 

“ I thanks God,” shouted Ursula, although she never 
did anything of the kind — ” I thanks God I ain’t got any 
children. I sees ’em go wrong every day, and I ses to 
myself, on my bended knees I ses, thank God.” 

This was virtue from the whisky-bottle and religion from 
the same source. Ursula never went on her knees, not 
even to scrub the floor. Father appeared to approve of 
her sentiments, and regarded his daughter with pride, as 
he liked to see a proper spirit of reverence in his descend- 
ants. Ursula was spirited enough before her own people, 
although when in George’s presence she usually wriggled 
like a worm. She was a small woman, swarthy in face, 
although soap would have removed much of it, with black 
eyes and curiously red lips which she kept on biting as if 
they irritated her. 

” A bastard,” she shouted. ” That’s what us ha’ got 


About Jars 93 

now. A bastard on me and my husband’s property. A 
dirty old man’s dirty bastard.” 

Uncle shuffled nearer the step of the kitchen. He 
w^anted to say something, only he had so few words. 

” Don’t yew say nought,” Ursula went on in a furious 
voice, as if she was shouting against the wind. ‘‘ Don’t 
say that boy, that Jimmy, got ’en, vor he didn’t. Us 
knaws better. Her be yourn, yew old serpint. Yew had 
she here ’cause yew’m tu mean to pay keep, and yew told 
the boy to bring ’en along and say ’twas his. Ain’t that 
right, John? Ain’t that right, vaither?” 

John made some hoarse noises from the door which 
might have meant anything, while Father grunted and 
coughed, and finally admitted in his own manner that his 
daughter had touched upon a delicate subject with singular 
tact and candour. He was ashamed to think that little 
bastards should be crawling about Wheal Dream. He 
didn’t object to dirt and insects because he was used to 
them, and dirt warmed his old bones, while insects were 
homely little things, but children who had no right to be 
alive were highly obnoxious. ” Us ha’ lived respectable 
and comfortable like,” he explained. ” Us ain’t had 
nought to be ashamed of avore. ” 

“It be a blessing to think us ain’t got nought on our 
conscience,” went on Ursula in the same noisy voice. 
” But there be never a family wi’out a bad ’un. Yew wur 
alius a dayceitful old toad. Uncle. Yew took the cottage 
and field from John and me wi’ artfulness, and yew ha’ 
been taking the bread out of our mouths ever since us 
wur married, and now yew’m filling the place wi’ your 
bastards till us can’t sleep in our beds. Look at ’en,” she* 
shouted. “Stands there and smiles as if he wur a 
gentleman.” 

Ursula was getting confused at the sight of so much 
baseness in human form and by the effort of expressing 
herself with suitable indignation. It was intolerable to 
think that Uncle should be behaving like a gentleman and 
introducing every sort of vice into their virtuous atmo- 
sphere. She didn’t know that the old man’s smile was a 
nervous one. He was mumbling and trying to speak 
plainly, but a stroke of paralysis some years back had 
left his speech affected, and he could not make headway 


Heather 


94 

against that noise. What with Ursula’s tongue on one 
side and John’s dull laughter on the other, Uncle was 
getting foolish. 

“ Let ’en talk,” said Father briskly. “ Let ’en say 
he’m sorry.” 

Old Gifford had no intention of expressing contrition 
for sins he had not committed. He had already explained 
the matter as well as he could, only they would not listen 
and would not believe. In the silence that followed he 
was heard to say, ” It warn’t Jimmy’s fault. He’m a boy 
and wur tempted I reckon. ’Twas the fault o’ they what 
put him and the maid together. ’Twas an accident like, 
and Jimmy ses he wun’t du no such a thing again.” 

” I’ll knock the head off ’en if I catches ’en trying,” 
muttered John, who had his full share of morality. 

‘‘ Us don’t want to hear ’bout Jimmy. Us wants to 
knaw what yew pays ’en for keeping his mouth shut,” 
cried Ursula; while Father nodded his head at her shrewd- 
ness and was glad to think that it came from his side of 
the family. 

” He’m a good boy,” said Uncle wearily, quite unable 
to answer a direct question. ” I does my best wi’ ’en. ” 

” Aw, the old vule,” said Ursula bitterly. ” He don’t 
deny it ’cause he can’t. Makes a brothel of Wheal Dream, 
gets pictures o’ naked women, and gives us no peace o’ 
nights wi’ reading his Bible and singing his hymns. I’ll 
tull ye how ’twill end. Uncle. The devil will come vor ye, 
yew may depend, and ’tis no gude telling lies to he, ’cause 
he knaws yew.” 

” He comes to all, I reckon,” said poor old Uncle, with 
his simple faith. ” I keeps ’en out as well as I can wi’ 
the gude buke, and yew asks ’en in wi’ thikky bottles.” 

This was an outrageous thing to say, and it properly 
horrified the Pethericks. Uncle was not only standing 
apart in the attitude of a righteous man, but was actually 
expressing gratitude, like the chapel person that he was, 
because he was not like them. Ursula had to finish the 
contents of her glass before she could shriek again, while 
John, from sheer force of habit, was compelled to abandon 
his position at the door and imitate her. Father was 
indignant too, but he consoled himself by reflecting that 
nobody would support Uncle’s claim to the beautiful new 


About Jars 95 

grave if it so happened that the devil should come for old 
Gifford before an escort of angels arrived for him. Uncle's 
conduct was rendering him ineligible, to say nothing of 
the fact that he belonged to chapel, while Father was a 
churchman and had proved it in his younger days by 
attending service every month and passing a full hour in 
comfortable if rather clamorous slumber. 

“Let ’en go,” said Father; but Uncle had already 
seized the opportunity to shuffle away as hard as he could. 
“ It bain’t vitty vor we to be wi’ he. Us be respectable 
volk,^” he said sternly. 

“ Why should us put up wi’ ’en then?” shouted his 
daughter. “ He bain’t vitty to bide near we, spending 
our money on his bastards. Ses that Jimmy got ’en, the 
proper old liar. I knaws they chapel-folk — dirty volk be 
what I calls ’em. I knaws how ’em prays and sings in 
the dark, and gropes vor one another. Sings and prays 
and preaches to cover their shame. If I had a young 
maid I’d throw her down the wheal avore she mixed wi’ 
they. Tak’ a drop o’ whisky, vaither dear. ’Twill mak’ 
ye sleep more comfortable.” 

Uncle crossed his little court and discovered Jimmy 
nursing the baby. It was getting dark, but the boy had 
not lighted the lamp. The fire was almost out, but he 
had not replenished it. Jimmy was rather a lazy boy, but 
then he had to feed and mind the baby, and that took up 
nearly all his time. There was something strange about 
the boy’s nature, thought Uncle. It was unusual to find 
any one of his age and sex devoted to an infant, even if 
it was his own, hardly ever leaving it, playing with it as 
a young mother might have done. Certainly the child was 
an excuse for not working, and manual labour was evi- 
dently distasteful to Jimmy. Uncle had to do everything, 
much more than formerly, for his grandson made a good 
deal of work and required regular meals. He had begun 
to order the old man about, and Uncle was so glad to 
have a companion that he never grumbled, though it took 
him a long time to climb up into the garden and pull a 
few vegetables. Jimmy might have done that, as it would 
only have taken him a few minutes ; but, as he explained, 
he was afraid to leave the child. 

Uncle was by no means badly off. He had forty pounds 


Heather 


96 

a year coming to him in the form of rents, as he owned a 
bit of property and several cottages in Metheral, which the 
Pethericks had nothing whatever to do with, and there 
was a nice bit put away, for of course he never spent his 
income. Jimmy knew that well enough, and the know- 
ledge was no inducement to seek his own livelihood, which 
would mean getting up early, and going out in all weathers 
on the moor with a heavy crowbar on his shoulder to crack 
granite until evening. He wanted to go abou’f with a pipe 
in his mouth, leading his little Dora by the hand, and 
sitting in the sun when he was tired. Uncle was getting 
feeble, and the doctor said another stroke would be the 
end of him. Jimmy saw no reason why he should not 
retire from work at sixteen and enjoy life. 

Uncle lighted the lamp, put it in the middle of the 
table, then shuffled outside for turves. The fire was so 
low that he had to get the big bellows and pump away 
with his stiff hands. He was tired, and Jimmy had appro- 
priated his chair, which was fairly comfortable and had a 
hard cushion of its own. Uncle often longed for that 
chair, but he did not like to ask the boy to give it up. 
Then the supper had to be prepared. It had become quite 
a formidable meal lately, and Uncle seemed to be always 
spending shillings and changing half-crowns. The poor 
old man hated opening his money-box, which was kept 
underneath his mattress, where it made a big bump against 
his side as a sign of its presence. It was a terrible opera- 
tion to take out a coin, and Uncle had fo shuffle up and 
down stairs several times, and read a chapter of his Bible, 
and say a few prayers before he could manage to do so. 
He was genuine enough, but he possessed the great dread, 
common to many old people, of some day finding the box 
bare and empty. 

Supper was finished, the crockery was washed and put 
back on the dresser, and Uncle opened the big book. That 
custom went on just the same in spite of Jimmy’s arrival, 
although the boy took no interest in lamentations of pro- 
phets or battles of Israelites. Uncle’s manner was against 
him, so was his voice; he would not have impressed any 
one, though he was very much in earnest. He read 
patiently, with the baby yelling on one side, and the 
Pethericks shouting on the other, until it became impos- 


About J ars 97 

sible to hear his own voice. He closed the book, post- 
poned the prayers and hymns for a time, and shuffled near 
the fire-place. 

“ Dost ever hear from the maid, Jimmy?” he asked. 

” Naw,” said the boy. ‘‘What would her write to I 
vor ? ’ ’ 

‘‘ If yew could find she ’twould be right and proper vor 
yew to be married. Her could look after we and the baby, 
and us would get along more comfortable like wi’ neigh- 
bours,” explained Uncle. 

‘‘ I don’t want she. Her wur a spotty-faced maid and 
proper ugly,” said Jimmy. It was not at all likely that 
he should agree with such a proposal. He scented work 
in it and suspected the old man of artfulness. With the 
girl about the place he could hardly refuse to go out and 
earn his own living. Besides, he had done with her, as 
was only natural after what had happened. He wanted 
to spend a little time in comfort, then try some one else, 
some girl bigger and stronger, who had something better 
than a spotty face and an ugly one to boot. With the 
question of morality he was not concerned at his age ; but 
that matter was of the deepest interest to Uncle. 

‘‘ Yew mun think o’ the baby. Yew mun think of I 
tu,” he said. ‘‘ Neighbours be getting cruel tedious. 
They’m saying terrible contrairy things about I, Jimmy.” 

‘‘ What be ’em saying?” asked the boy sullenly. 

‘‘ Ses the baby be mine. ’Tis no gude telling ’em I be 
tu old, vor they wun’t hearken.” 

‘‘ I told varmer I wur tu young, but they wouldn’t be- 
lieve me naythur. Us be in the same box, granfer,” said 
Jimmy, grinning. 

‘‘ That warn’t the truth,” reproved Uncle. ‘‘ Don’t ye 
get into the way o’ lying, Jimmy, vor gude wun’t come of 
it, and it leads to the place where there be weeping and 
gnashing o’ teeth.” 

‘‘ Yew’m safe, I reckon, granfer. Yew ain’t got none 
to gnash.” 

‘‘ Mebbe us will be given them, if us ha’ got to gnash,” 
said Uncle simply. ‘‘ Du ’ye find the maid and marry she. 
I ’ll give ye a proper wedding, carriage to chapel and back 
home, and a gurt big golden sovereign vor a present.” 

‘‘ I tull ye I don’t want she,” said Jimmy, in the same 

7 


Heather 


98 

sullen way. “ I wouldn’t marry she not vor two golden 
sovereigns. Her don’t want I naythur, vor her ha’ got a 
chap in the artillery what keeps her. Her be none the 
worse vor I, ’cause her ain’t got the kid to mind. Her 
wanted to put ’en out o’ the way, but I ses to she, ‘ I’ll 
tak’ mun,’ I ses. ‘ I likes the little beggar.’ So I du, 
but I don’t like she, and I wun’t ha’ she, and what’s more, 
granfer, I don’t know where her be now.” 

” It bain’t right, Jimmy,” pleaded Uncle. “ Us bain’t 
here down under like to live as beastes, what yets grass, 
and breeds, and does nought else, vor ’em don’t know no 
better. Us ha’ got to du as the buke tells. Us ha’ got 
to stand up straight avore the gurt white throne and say, 
‘ When I wur down under I tried to be better than the 
beastes, Master.’ Ees, Jimmy boy, it be wrote in the 
buke just what 1 ses. Us can’t be beastes first and volk 
afterwards, vor the buke ses that bain’t the way. Us ha’ 
got to be volk first and beastes afterwards. Yew come 
wi’ I to chapel Sunday and preacher wull tull ye the 
like.” 

” I don’t want your old chapel,” said the boy scorn- 
fully. ” That old buke wur wrote a sight o’ years ago by 
chaps what made a living out on’t. Varmer said to I, 

‘ Don’t ye read ’en. ’Twull only maze ye and mak’ ye 
want to argify wi’ volk.’ He gave I a buke ’bout pirates, 
what took a lot o’ ships all vull o’ gold and flung the 
volks into the sea. ’Twas proper reading, I reckon, so 
’twas. Varmer and me got on well enough. ’Twas 
missis I couldn’t abide.” 

Uncle shuffled back to the table and placed his hand 
reverently upon the dirty book, every page of which bore 
the impression of his fingers. He didn’t understand what 
the boy had said. He knew nothing about the new spirit 
of education and the glorious enlightenment which it was 
bringing to minds still struggling from the earth, and too 
ignorant to know that what they mistook for broad day- 
light was really the damp and foggy hours before the 
dawn. He himself was either in complete darkness or 
the full light of the sun ; he could not know which, and 
nobody could tell him ; but he never doubted that he was 
in the light. Had any one tried to convince him he was 
mistaken their words would have conveyed no meaning, 


About Jars 99 

because he could see nothing beyond his own horizon; 
just as a man dazzled by the sun can see nothing else. 
But Jimmy represented the new spirit. He was the human 
being revised and brought up to date, educated and shown 
that he was as good as those who were supposed by the 
last generation to be his betters, convinced that there was 
a good deal in life beyond work, which seemed indeed to 
lead to nothing, assured that the books and beliefs of the 
past belonged to the past; for such was the result of 
education upon a mind which could not assimilate it. 
Uncle had never drunk from that stream of knowledge 
and his mind was at peace. He said his prayers, and 
sang his hymns about the other side of Jordan as well as 
he could for the noise next door, and then shuffled about 
setting the cottage in order, while Jimmy put the baby to 
sleep as skilfully as if he had been a woman. 

There were visitors next door. Bill and Bessie Chown 
from Downacombe, for Ursula to quarrel with. Bill was 
her brother and Father’s only son, but the tie of relation- 
ship did not endear him to the Pethericks, and though 
the Chowns were frequent visitors to Wheal Dream they 
were never welcome ones. Bill and Bessie were sober folk 
who worked very hard for their living, and as a conse- 
quence they earned it and were holding their own, while 
the Pethericks were going back fast. Bill worked at the 
copper mine while his wife undertook the sanatorium 
washing which, for obvious reasons, could not go to an 
ordinary laundry. Both of them did a little drinking, as 
was natural, but they drank wisely, not like the Pethericks 
who placed their property in bottles and were pouring it 
away in drams nightly. John and Ursula had always 
looked down upon Bill and Bessie, regarding them as poor 
folk whose end would be the workhouse. They themselves 
were commoners, tenants of the Prince, and their life was 
an easy one, or it would have been had they not insisted 
upon making it difficult. The Chowns were tied and 
bound, tenants of their rector, who demanded the utter- 
most farthing, and their life was very hard, though they 
worked as well as they could. Every morning Bill was up 
early, in summer soon after sunrise, in winter long before 
dawn, and tramped through driving rain, mud, snow or 
ice to the mine more than a mile away, a long tramp over 


lOO 


Heather 


difficult places, across a little Hoga where the whist hounds 
and the wind were always hunting — often Bill had to cover 
his face, or the particles of ice swept across at forty miles 
an hour would have flayed it — and over watercourses 
which w'ere often in flood. Men more delicately nurtured 
would have been tired out by the time they reached the 
mine. Then the long day of work until the whistle sounded 
at dusk, and after that the tramp home, or a journey first 
to Metheral for the washing, which meant a big and heavy 
basket to carry home. “ He be proper tired, be Bill, 
when he brings the flasket down home alone,” Bessie 
would say. All that work, and no play, for a few shillings 
a week which was just enough to keep them out of the 
wind; while Frank Leigh received his sixteen pounds a 
week, and lived delicately, and had withal no work to 
make him sweat. 

There was plenty of noise at Wheal Dream when the 
Chowns came along, simply because there were more 
tongues to make it. Ursula and Bessie regarded each 
other with dislike, partly because they were women and 
related, chiefly because they were jealous of each other. 
Bill and his father got on fairly well, though the old man 
considered his son was inclined to be bumptious. John 
hated them both, but he was polite to Bill in an offensive 
kind of way, or the miner might have flung him down the 
wheal. The Chowns had no children, which was strange, 
as Bessie looked just the sort of woman to bring forth 
plenteously^ being strong and plump ; but apparently Father 
had not been permitted to pass along the procreative gift, 
as both his children, Ursula and Bill, were sterile. The 
Pethericks were jealous of the Chowns because they seemed 
to be doing too well and taking too many shillings a week. 
The Chowns had a better reason for their jealousy, because 
they were not commoners, they were outside and could not 
possibly get inside, and they had no share in the privileges 
which the Pethericks enjoyed but had not the sense to 
make use of to their profit. 

Bessie brought the bad feeling out at once. She had 
been to the sanatorium to get paid, and she opened her 
purse and jingled its contents with the unnecessary com- 
ment, ” Silver, my old dear,” before Ursula’s eyes. 

Father at once stirred himself, reaching out a shaking 


About Jars loi 

hand like a mud-rake, and said, “ Give that I, Bessie. 
He’m mine.” 

” What be yew saying, vaither?” said Bessie pleasantly. 

” He’m mine,” the old man declared. ” Dropped mun 
on the road, and couldn’t stoop to pick mun up. Vull o’ 
silver he wur, sure ’nulf. ” Father had his own peculiar 
ideas about property, and in such cases his personal pro- 
nouns were very selfish ones. 

” Yew stop thee old mouth,” said Bessie. This was 
quite an ordinary remark, not meant to be offensive, but 
it gave Ursula the opening which she was looking for. 

” Who be yew telling to shut his mouth?” she shouted. 
” He’m my vaither, and I wun’t have ’en insulted in his 
own house, an old man what can’t look after hisself tu. 
If yew can’t talk as a decent woman should, Bessie Chown, 
I reckon ’twould pay yew better to bide down to Downa- 
combe. Yew bain’t wanted up here along, I tulls ye, no, 
nor Bill neither, though he’m my brother, wi’ his face 
vull o’ malice when he hears his old vaither put upon. 
Get down under to your mucky old home to Downacombe 
and bide there, I ses. ” And Ursula got the cork into the 
bottle at the third attempt, to indicate that the hospitality 
of Wheal Dream was not offered to inferior persons. 

” He bain’t going to have my money what Bill and me 
works vor,” said Bessie defiantly. 

” Aw, yew works, I reckon. Washerwoman — that’s what 
yew be — Washerwoman,” shouted Ursula, hoping the 
taunt was a bitter one. ‘‘Us be free volk, us don’t have 
no master to interfere wi’ we. Me and my husband be 
free. Think I’d soil my hands wi’ washing dirty clothes? 
Look at ’em, Bessie Chown. Think I’d soil ’em, I ses,” 
she cried, without ever realising that they could hardly be 
filthier than they were. ‘‘Think my husband would dig 
in an old mine, and be proud of a few shillings? Us be 
varmers and commoners, us be volk wi’ land and pro- 
perty, us can look any squire or parson in the face and 
say they’m no better than we. Who be yew? Dirt, 
that’s what I calls yew. Proper old stinking dirt.” 

‘‘ Aw, dirt, that’s what ’em be,” muttered John, lurch- 
ing along the kitchen wall and laughing like a hyaena. 

‘‘ Shut thee noise, John,” said Bill quietly. He was a 
short, thickset man, as hard as old oak and wonderfully 


102 


Heather 


quiet in his manner. “ I’ll tull ye two or dree things,” 
he went on. ” Vaither, mind where yew’m spitting. I’ll 
tull ye this as a start olf like. Us be making our way, 
slow, I reckon, but us be making it, and us will live to 
see yew in the workhouse.” 

He brought his great fist down upon the table, making 
the pernicious bottle and the cream-pans jump and tingle. 
Bill had been touched upon his raw spot. It was his 
ambition to escape from Downacombe and make himself 
a commoner; but that could not be done without money, 
and he could not save, for he had to repair his cottage and 
keep it from tumbling on his head. His landlord would 
not do anything. 

” Yew’m getting tu artful wi’ that tongue o’ yourn,” 
croaked Father very crossly. 

” Let ’en bide,” said Ursula, in withering tones. ” They 
knaws no better, vaither. They’m poor volk and cruel 
jealous o’ we. Her takes washing and he digs in a mine. 
They can’t bite, so ’em barks. Du ’ye knaw what us got 
vor the wheal house?” she shouted suddenly at her 
brother. ” I’ll tull ye. Mr. Brunacombe paid we one 
hundred and fifty pounds, and that’s more money than 
yew ever seed in your life, or ever will if yew lives as long 
as Arethusalum. ” 

” Where be that money now?” said Bill quietly. 

“Where yew can’t get it,” muttered John, with his 
unpleasant laugh. 

“ Where yew can’t neither,” came the quick reply. 
“It be gone and yew’m the poorer. Landlord ha’ got 
most of ’en, I reckon, vor they bottles wi’ stars on ’em 
can’t be got vor nought, and there’s a heap of ’em in the 
muck-hole yonder. Yew bain’t better off than we vor 
getting money what yew ha’ flung away.” 

“That’s it, my man. Yew give ’em the truth,” said 
Bessie. 

“ Shut thee noise, woman,” said her husband in the 
same quiet voice. “ I’ll tell ’em enough avore I goes.” 

“ Aw, yew’m a proper talker down to Downacombe, 
they ses. Yew stands up on the lifting-stock and tells the 
volk they’m put upon,” cried Ursula, who was not half so 
comfortable as she appeared to be. “ Proper old bag o’ 
wind yew be. All talk and nought to show vor ’en, they 


About Jars 103 

ses. Bill the liar they calls yew, and I reckon ’em bain’t 
far out.” 

“ Be that as ’twull. One story be as gude as t’other 
when yew’m nought to tell. Where be the money yew 
got vor putting your crosses to they papers avore wit- 
nesses? More than hundred and fifty pounds that wur, 
though yew bain’t so ready to tell about ’en, and that be 
money yew ha’ got to pay back,” cried Bill, striking the 
table again. 

“ Us wun’t come to yew vor ’en,” said his sister sullenly. 

“Where be all them pounds and pounds? Yew ain’t 
done nought to the varm. It be worse than it wur in old 
Petherick’s time, and he wur a poor man what had no 
borrowed money, but he worked and kept agoing same as 
we’m doing. He wur a free man, and yew bain’t. There 
be your bullocks wi’out feed, and your old horse wi’ all 
his bones sticking out. Yew don’t get milk from bullocks 
and work from horses if yew don’t keep ’em plulfy. ” 

“ Aw, yew’m a purty fine varmer, I reckon,” said John 
in his riotous way, amused to think that he should be 
taught his business by a copper-miner. 

“ I knaws plenty,” said Bill, his little black eyes getting 
fierce. “ I knaw what happened when doctor came up 
along wi’ these consumptuous volk. Yew, and vaither tu, 
though he’m old enough to knaw better, yew wur all agin 
’em, and yew ses, us wun’t have they foreigners here. I 
knaws how doctor came along and said he’d tak’ cream 
and milk and such off yew, and yew ses, us wun’t ha’ 
nought to du wi’ ye. Proper artful yew thought your- 
selves, I reckon. Du ’ye know what old Bidlake be taking? 
Wull, ril tull’ye. Dree pounds a week winter and 
summer. ” 

This was more than Ursula could stand. The memory 
of that refusal was a bitter pill which she never could 
swallow. She and her husband had opposed the sanator- 
ium in their short-sighted way, supposing that all the other 
commoners would go with them. So they might have 
done had they not smelt money. They had threatened at 
one time to throw turves at the doctor, but when he replied 
with a shower of money they bowed their heads and wor- 
shipped. The sanatorium became a golden calf set up in 
their midst, and we all know what happens when that idol 


Heather 


104 

is erected. The Pethericks had been offered their chance 
to go on the flood and had chosen to remain stranded. 
The last thrust of Bill Chown was worse than his first. 

“ Yew’d best be getting home, yew and the woman,” 
said Ursula, pointing towards the passage. “ Downa- 
combe be your place, not Dartmoor, and yew can bide 
there till yew’m neighbourly. Wheal Dream be ours, and 
us bain’t going to be insulted by Downacombe volk on our 
own property.” 

” She’m right. Bill,” said Bessie, as she made for the 
door. ” Wheal Dream be theirs till it be took from ’em.” 

“Aw, the dirty actress,” muttered Ursula, but luckily 
the Chowns did not hear this crowning insult. 

” Good-night, old vaither,” said the miner heartily. 

” Bill,” croaked the old man, who was half asleep and 
half undressed and altogether unashamed. ‘'Yew’m an 
owdacious toad.” 

” Be that as ’twull,” said Bill, with a laugh. “ I knaws 
the mucky end of a stick when I puts my hand on ’en. ” 

‘‘Go back to your muck-hole and eat dirt,” shouted 
Ursula, determined to have the last word on her own 
property. 

‘‘ Us ha’ got our fill of it here,” called Bessie, beating 
her. Then the hard-working Chowns tramped off towards 
Downacombe below the moor. Father climbed laboriously 
to his resting-place ; and the Pethericks, having nobody else 
to fight, quarrelled with each other until they were tired 
out. 

Wheal Dream was quiet at last, and the spirit of the 
place was able to assert itself. Even Bubo was not wail- 
ing, for the little owl had scuttled beneath his master’s 
coat and was asleep in that warm shelter; while in his 
tiny cottage, alone and peaceful, old Uncle sat beside the 
table, near the smoky lamp and grimy book, reading aloud, 
transported for an hour into the world of dreams and 
visions. 


CHAPTER VIII 


ABOUT A HALF-HOLIDAY 

After mid-day dinner on Sunday the patients who were 
“ strong ” could do as they liked for the rest of the day. 
They ceased to be children in the nursery and became 
free-willed again, although they were liable to be punished 
on Monday for any sins committed on Sunday. So they 
were not quite free. Even supper was not compulsory, 
but every one attended and stuffed their hardest, because 
Monday was a black and anxious time for all back- 
sliders. The scales were uncovered, the books were 
opened, each one was weighed in the balance, and it was 
bad for those who were found wanting. They were all 
as keen after pounds of flesh as so many Shylocks. 

Winnie had been admitted into the company of those 
who enjoyed the privilege of the half-holiday, and she 
was so pleased that she said she should go for a walk 
just because she hadn’t got to. Berenice remained in the 
garden talking with Miss Budge, and trying to feel cross 
with Winnie for enticing Tobias away from her; for the 
little wretch had attached himself entirely to the prettiest 
girl in the place, as was his usual custom. He was always 
with Winnie, sleeping on her bed — the centre of it for 
choice — helping her in her meals, and declaring that he 
v/ould remain her faithful squire until he fell in love with 
some one else. It was to Winnie that he brought his 
ball when the desire for recreation came upon him, and 
if Berenice approached with pleading words he merely 
wagged twice, contorted his body once, and explained 
that old flames couldn’t expect any more friendly recog- 
nition. Tobias was not under treatment, but he was put- 
ting on weight fast and attaining aldermanic proportions. 

Of the other patients. Sill tramped off across the moor 

105 


io6 


Heather 


to a distant village where he could get a service flavoured 
with a spice of Romanism, which the inhabitants couldn’t 
understand and therefore refrained from, but it was con- 
genial to the curate, who delighted more in a genuflexion 
than in the rights or wrongs of rustics. Gumm and 
Mudd, as a sharp contrast, borrowed a ferret and some 
nets that they might go forth rabbiting. Halfacre went 
off with a little tin box, after explaining to the delighted 
Gumm that he was going in search of Dicranum taxi- 
folium, which he translated, out of pity for his listener’s 
ignorance, into yew-leaved fork-moss. Gumm politely 
assured him there was plenty of it about the old stream- 
works beneath Steeperton, and he had himself collected 
some specimens to send his wife, who was deeply in- 
terested in such things. Halfacre, who did not compre- 
hend chaff, went off in that direction upon a hopeless 
quest, while Gumm shouted for the publican to inform 
him that school-master had gone out in search of a taxed 
cranium. “ Go and ask granny what it means,” he 
added. ” She knows most things, except her age.” 

Miss Budge was lying in a hammock-chair, and near 
her was Berenice upon the grass, celebrating the half- 
holiday by smoking a cigarette, which Miss Budge did 
not approve of. ” Girls shouldn’t do it,” she said. ” It 
ruins the complexion.” 

” She must have been a hard smoker,” whispered the 
publican. 

” Well, what are you two big boys going to do?” 
asked Miss Budge pleasantly. She was always affable to 
men, whatever their station. 

” Just^off to Sunday school,” said Gumm. ” I’ve been 
hearing the kid his catechism. Says ’twas his father 
who gave him his name, and I say it was the Workhouse 
Guardians.” 

” Better than being christened by the prison chaplain 
the night before your mother was hanged,” Mudd retorted. 

‘' He’s jealous because he don’t know what happened 
to his after she went wrong,” Gumm explained. 

These men couldn’t insult each other, although they 
appeared to be always trying. They were perfectly 
friendly, and would have stood up for each other through 
thick and thin. Chaff in an advanced stage of decom- 


About a Half-holiday 107 

position was the only conversation that appealed to them. 
The ladies were often compelled to play the part of deaf 
adders. 

“ Now, Miss Arabella, you know the litany,” began 
Gumm. 

” Botany, you mouldy pigeon,” shouted Mudd. 

” I will not be addressed by my Christian name. Please 
remember that,” said Miss Budge crossly. 

” She reminds me of a pretty little story in a Sunday- 
school prize o’ mine,” Gumm went on. ” Flossie calls 
mother a silly old fool. ‘ Flossie,’ says mother, ‘ I won’t 
stand it.’ ‘Mother,’ says Flossie, ‘how are you going 
to prevent it?’ ” 

‘‘ The brute,” said Miss Budge. 

‘‘ What is a taxed cranium, please. Auntie?” asked 
Gumm respectfully. 

‘‘ Do you mean a poll-tax?” said the puzzled spinster. 

‘‘ He don’t know what he means,” said Mudd. 

‘‘ Right for once, beer-tank. ’Tis something school- 
master’s gone out to find. I told him where he’s sure to 
come upon it, and I want to know what it is, so that I 
can tell him all about it when he brings it back.” 

‘‘ I don’t know,” Miss Budge replied. ‘‘ I don’t go 
in for fancy names, and I never learnt Latin.” 

‘‘ Another sufferer from those twopenny board-schools,” 
said Gumm pityingly. ‘‘ As for me, I forgot the obscene 
languages directly I left Eton.” 

‘‘ Obsolete,” laughed Miss Budge. 

‘‘ Are ye?” said Mudd sorrowfully. ‘‘ Never mind. 
Auntie. You’ll be born again some day.” 

‘‘ I won’t talk to you any more, rude creatures,” said 
the spinster snappishly. ‘‘ Berenice, give me up my 
book.” 

‘‘ What a shocking thing it is to see angry passions 
upon the face of one we love,” observed Mudd sadly. 

Miss Budge could stand a good deal, besides being 
rather a foolish creature, and she had to laugh at these 
leather-skinned men, who meant nothing, after all. She 
soon dropped the book and said, ‘‘The idiot has gone 
moss-hunting, I suppose. He’s got moss on the brain.” 

‘‘ Well, he did mention moss, and he said something 
about a yew-tree and a fork.” 


io8 Heather 

“Fork-moss,” said Berenice. “There’s none about 
here. ” 

“ ’Ullo, here’s the little girl woke up,” cried Gumm. 
” Better throw that fag away, my dear, or you’ll be sick 
all over your Sunday pinny.” 

” It’s a miracle to me that a man should go out and 
dig for moss,” said Mudd. 

” Only time I picked it was when I went fishing to keep 
the worms moist,” said Gumm. 

” Why didn’t you swallow ’em at the end of a bit of 
string, and pull ’em up as you wanted ’em?” growled the 
publican. 

“ Listen to him ! Two sizes too large for his shirt, 
ain’t he?” retorted the commercial. 

“ Go away,” said Miss Budge. “ We have had quite 
enough of you both.” 

“We’re going. I’ll tell you a pretty story when I 
come back. Auntie, a nice little Sunday afternoon story, 
called Tommy and Dolly, or what happened round the 
mulberry-bush.” 

“ We won’t trouble you,” said the spinster firmly. 

“ No trouble. Auntie dear. And the pleasure is less.” 

“ I never saw such creatures,” murmured Berenice. 
“ Don’t answer. You are sure to get the worst of it.” 

The Twins moved off arm-in-arm, as inseparable as 
a pair of trousers, and Gumm, who could not keep his 
mouth shut for long, called from the gate, “ Ain’t you 
going out this beautiful afternoon?” 

“ No, I am not,” said Miss Budge decisively. “ It’s 
the only time we can do what we like. I’m going to 
stop here ” 

“ And not budge,” added the publican. 

“ Hold your tongue, Mr. Mudd.” 

“ He can’t. Auntie. His hand is only just big enough 
to get round a beer-barrel.” 

“ I hate walking on a full stomach,” explained the 
spinster. 

“ I should too,” said Gumm thoughtfully. “ Might 
get it scratched.” 

“ I warned you,” said Berenice, as the Twins departed 
with a tempestuous noise. “You will answer them, and 
that’s what you get.” 


About a Half-holiday 109 

“ They are coarse creatures, but they do add to our 
gaiety. Really I would rather listen to them than the 
bleating Sill or the tinkling Halfacre,” said Miss Budge. 
” Now I have three questions I want to ask you about 
Halfacre. Is he a gentleman? What’s he doing with 
Winnie? And where did he get that white heather he’s 
always wearing?” 

” I dropped it, he must have picked it up, and I wasn’t 
going to ask for it.” 

“I thought perhaps she had given it him,” said Miss 
Budge in a relieved voice. 

” Winnie give it him ! Oh well, she would if he asked 
for it. The poor little thing would give her soul away to 
any one who wanted it.” 

“ You are awfully fond of her, Berenice.” 

” I love her,” said the girl. “I’d like to have her with 
me always, pet and play with her, and sleep in her arms. 
She is so sweet and helpless. I have never really loved 
anything but dogs, and when Tobias left me and went 
with her I was perfectly wretched. I couldn’t slap him, 
and I couldn’t be angry with her. If it had been any 
other girl I should have seen all sorts of wicked colours, 
but when Winnie smiled and dimpled, and said in her 
dear way, ‘ It wasn’t my fault,’ I could only hug her. I 
wish she would trust me more. She won’t tell me any- 
thing about herself, and when I press her she cries.” 

“ Is she bad?” asked Miss Budge with hesitation, 
knowing that she was touching upon a forbidden subject. 

” Yes,” said Berenice in the same low voice. ” I 
made doctor tell me. She will never be anything but 
an invalid. She will always have to live the open-air 
life.” 

“ But she will fight. I can see that in her. It won’t 
happen ” 

” Be quiet,” said Berenice sharply. 

‘‘I’m sorry,” pleaded the spinster. “Well, answer 
my other questions.” 

“ I don’t know what Half acre means. I simply can’t 
understand the man, and I don’t like those eyes of his, 
which make me feel quite stupid. He asked me to hand 
him a book last night, and I said, ‘ Get it yourself ’ ; and 
he just said quietly, ‘ Pass it, please,’ and looked at me. 


no Heather 

and I’ll be hanged if I didn’t give it him. You wouldn t 
call me weak-minded?” 

‘‘Not exactly,” laughed Miss Budge. 

‘‘ If he spoke like that to Winnie she would fall at his 
feet. I’m keeping my eye upon her, and she shan’t do 
anything silly if I can prevent it,” said Berenice. 

“ She’ll never be able to marry anyhow,” said Miss 
Budge, somewhat gratified to feel she was not the only 
one. 

‘‘ Keep off that subject. If I had her with me always 
I’d make her well. I’d simply love her back to health,” 
said the girl passionately. 

‘‘ A man might do that.” 

” No, a man would kill her. It’s the calm wind she 
wants, not a strong one.” 

‘‘ Where has she gone this afternoon?” 

‘‘ Out on the moor with a book, but she won’t read. 
She will sit among the heather, and bathe in the wind, 
and dimple at the sun, and mop her blue eyes sometimes. 
She’s got some trouble, though she won’t tell me. When- 
ever I’m extra pretty to her she always cries and says 
she’s miserable. But she won’t say anything more.” 

” We are supposed to be talking about Halfacre, but 
it’s all Winnie,” Miss Budge went on. ‘‘ Come back to 
the subject and tell me what the man is.” 

‘‘ It’s no good asking questions that I can’t answer,” 
said Berenice. ‘‘ There are so many different kinds of 
gentlemen. Sill and Brunacombe are both gentlemen, but 
they are as unlike each other as a frog is unlike a farm- 
yard rooster.” 

‘‘You mustn’t say anything unpleasant about Bruna- 
combe,” cried Miss Budge at once. 

‘‘I’m not. Still he does flap his wings and crow a bit. 
I suppose Halfacre is fairly well born,” the girl went on. 
‘‘He’s a scholar, and doesn’t let you forget it, and you 
can’t imagine an Oxford scholar being of the stuff that 
the Twins are made of. Oh yes, he’s a sort of gentle- 
man right enough, though he is ill-bred.” 

‘‘ Disgustingly so,” cried Miss Budge. ‘‘ He kicked 
me under the table, and instead of apologising told me 
to put my feet somewhere else.” 

‘‘ I’ve had enough of this sort of talk. It will give 


About a Half-holiday 1 1 1 

me a temperature,” said Berenice. ” I’ll go and do 
some photographs. I’ve taken Winnie in at least a dozen 
positions, all of them pretty ones, and the light is just 
right for printing.” 

Winnie who was being talked about crossed the common 
to Wheal Dream, which was absolutely peaceful. The 
windows of the wheal house were wide open, but not a 
sound came forth, and there was nothing to be seen 
except a curtain flapping in the wind. That curtain was 
torn, and Winnie reflected that the inhabitant of the house 
had no one to ply the needle for him. She worried about 
that rather as she passed the house. Some girls might 
have knocked at the door and said, ” If you will take 
down that torn curtain and give it me I will mend it for 
you.” Such an idea would never have entered Winnie’s 
head. Had the man who lived inside told her that he 
expected her to mend that curtain she would have hurried 
past the place at a dangerous speed. As it was, she went 
by rather as if she feared she was likely to contract the 
plague. ” Of course no one saw me,” she said, alluding 
no doubt to the Pethericks or to Uncle, and so far she was 
right. Still some one, who was not at all likely to enter 
into her thoughts, saw her coming and watched her out 
of sight, which meant going from one side of the old 
house to the other and running up a good many stairs; 
some one who was an artist and probably wanted to fix 
that head well in his mind, as he happened to be engaged 
in no less a task than an attempt at painting it; and for 
that purpose he had placed a bunch of pink and white 
heather beside his easel in order that he might get certain 
fairly well remembered flesh tints accurately mixed upon 
his palette. This person perceived that Winnie was wear- 
ing white heather at her waist; but the subject was not 
a pleasant one, as he had seen Halfacre go by still 
wearing that sprig in his coat, and he knew well enough 
how it had been obtained. Perhaps he had asked for 
it and the girl had not liked to refuse. He hoped that 
the white heather would bring better luck to the maid 
than to the man. 

Winnie climbed up the moor, but not so fast when 
she perceived that no one was running after her, and 
followed the waving track towards the peat-bogs. That 


I 12 


Heather 


track had been made by the carts of many generations 
bringing the fuel home, and it was amazingly crooked 
because men have to walk in curves, perhaps because one 
of the human legs is shorter than the other, or one side 
of the brain is heavier than the other, or because the 
crooked part of the character is generally uppermost. 
Winnie did not meander along the snaky track. She 
made crossways of her own until she came out on the 
level tableland of the marshes where no paths exist, and 
saw brown pyramids of peat drying in the sun. Down 
its natural chute of Steeperton cleave came the river, 
hurrying to the lowlands between billowy heather and 
blocks of granite ; where peat-cutters have brought to 
light huge timbers which wise men declared are sufficient 
evidence that a forest of oaks once covered that marsh, 
though they are nothing more than wooden beams brought 
there by the tinners to shore up their workings ; where 
the river executes such extraordinary wrigglings that the 
same wise men have felt perfectly safe in asserting that 
serpent worship was once practised there, although the 
innocent river has done nothing more blasphemous than 
carve its way as it could where the ground was softest; 
where the banks are dotted with big knolls which point, 
according to men of intellect, to some convulsion of 
nature, although the ordinary moorman calls them the 
“ deads ” of old tinworks. Winnie passed among these 
things of the wilderness, enjoying them just because they 
made her forget other things, and for a time she was 
happy enough. She could feel that she was walking in 
her own pleasure-grounds as there was nobody else, no 
keeper, no gardener. It was all her own, wind, sun, 
and light included. She put up her face and smiled be- 
cause her surroundings were so sweet and pure ; and 
the sun kissed her, not in a calm, parental way, but like 
a passionate lover trying to draw her soul out. He was 
an ardent sun that afternoon. There was no pettifogging 
cloud to distract his attention. It was Sunday and his 
day out. 

Winnie swam down to the river. There was no occa- 
sion for walking in that breeze, upon that pink and brown 
tableland fourteen hundred feet above any of those diseased 
growths called towns. There was nothing out of har- 


About a Half-holiday 113 

mony, no tumultuous bells going- like hammers, no street- 
corners infested with girl-baiting loafers, no preacher 
advertising the latest thing in religion, no tavern-doors 
swinging to and fro. It was all natural, nothing was 
being patented ; the sun was in the chair, the wind kept 
the door, and all the horrors of a town Sunday had to stay 
outside. 

The delights of that river of green water were endless. 
It was green there, but red higher up because the water 
contained so much iron. A good drink of it was better 
than thin wine made out of trodden refuse of the vine- 
yard. Winnie and the river were soon having a game 
together. The river was free always, but she had only 
Sunday afternoons, and this was the first one. She 
played at hide-and-seek with the stickles. The river was 
very young there, in the crowing and bubbling stage of 
babyhood, and it seemed to be running madly round and 
round after its own current — a very different river from 
the sedate old stream which saunters in a round- 
stomached fashion across the sand flats of Barnstaple — 
and it was ready enough to play with any one. So narrow 
was it in places that bushy heather concealed the water, 
and it was just there that a stickle gushed and tinkled. 
Winnie heard the sound, and tried to track the singing 
creature to its hiding-place. She knew when she was 
getting near by the increasing sound, but the stickle was 
not easy to find because it played all kinds of ventriloquial 
tricks and the wind was gushing too. At last she reached 
the exact spot, and lifted a great tangle of heather, stand- 
ing ankle deep in moss, to see the white foam and to hear 
the music swelling up like the sound of an organ when 
the church door is opened. Then she would hear another 
stickle singing and run away to look for that. 

Tired at last, she sat upon the heather, sweet-scented 
and springy, filled with pleasant insects working out their 
destiny, all busy in the struggle for existence — there is no 
mercy extended to insect-loafers — and she watched the 
peak of big Steeperton poking playfully at the cloudlets, 
which it was attracting with the idea of forming a thick 
warm mantle by evening. The sight made Winnie think, 
and her mind began to play with certain thoughts just as 
Steeperton was playing with cloudlets; only they were 
8 


Heather 


114 

dark, unhappy thoughts. She had been free while roam- 
ing the marshes, but now the thoughts began to worry 
again. She wondered what that man was doing. She 
always thought of her lover as that man, which was not 
a good sign. Probably he was sitting in a small room 
filled with stilf furniture and scorching oleographs, the 
windows shut, the room a thick, nauseous cloud of strong 
tobacco-smoke ; he would be reading the sporting column 
of a Sunday newspaper ; he would be half-dressed and 
unshaven. He was very dark, and even when clean- 
shaven his chin looked dirty. He had often scraped her 
poor cheek in his rough, loving way, and it always made 
her feel quite ill. Those tender dimples against that grit 
and wire. Winnie shivered and her colour only remained 
because the wind insisted upon it. She remembered an 
evening, it had been one of the worst, when he had 
scraped and maltreated her, and finally had entreated, 
“ Call me Ern, love. It sounds more homely.” 

Winnie heard the stickles singing but she could not 
hear footsteps beside the river, for the soft peat swallowed 
up all sound. She was in white and therefore a con- 
spicuous object; dark clothing is lost upon the moor, but 
any white patch catches the eye immediately. Halfacre, 
returning empty-handed from his moss chase in the cleave 
above, saw the white and guessed who caused it, and his 
way back went naturally by the side of the river. Once 
he had to cough, but Winnie did not hear it; nor did 
she see Halfacre until he came round the bend and stopped 
a little below her, looking fresh-coloured and almost hand- 
some, his empty tin box beneath his arm. 

Winnie lifted herself quickly, pulling her feet up and 
her skirt down, for she had been kicking about comfort- 
ably on her bed of heather. Here was another creature 
claiming his rights as tenant in common of the marsh; 
standing before her on his own little bit of freehold, for 
a man may certainly claim as his own whatever piece 
of land he actually stands upon, since it is obvious that 
nobody else can occupy it at the same time. Well, he 
had driven the thoughts away, and for that she was grate- 
ful; but it would mean walking back with him, and Winnie 
liked to be alone when she was on the moor, or with 
some very congenial spirit, some one who would talk 


About a Half-holiday 115 

about the Perambulators and could weave a wonderful 
film of tales around Wheal Dream and Chapel Ford. Then 
she realised she hadn’t heard a word of what Half acre 
was saying. That was because he would keep on looking 
at her. Then he came up, sat beside her on her own 
freehold of heather, picked up her hand, looked at it, 
then dropped it as if he had made up his mind that he 
was not hungry after all. It was an outrageous thing to 
do, and Winnie ought to have told him so, only she 
couldn’t. It was impossible for her to be rude to any 
one. 

“You always hold your head drooping slightly towards 
your shoulder, which I believe is a sign of weakness,’’ 
he said, as if inviting her to join him in the study of 
some new and interesting species. “ You brush your 
ankles with the heels of your shoes, which denotes lack 
of confidence. There is the mark upon your stocking.’’ 

Winnie covered it promptly and said she couldn’t help 
it. That was her usual defence. Whatever happened it 
was not her fault, and she was usually right. 

“ You cannot look me in the eyes, which is a sign of 
modesty. Yes, that’s right,’’ he said to himself. 
“ Lavater says so. I have been trying to think of the 
animal type that you represent. You know, I suppose, 
that some low type of irrational animal provides the 
basis of every human countenance?” 

“ I didn’t,” said Winnie timidly, not understanding 
but trying to be interested. Why couldn’t he talk about 
the river and the moor, or, if he couldn’t do that, sit still 
and let the stickles sing? She heard nothing of the water 
while he was lecturing. 

“It is so,” he went on, as if it was a matter of the 
greatest importance. “ One man represents the goat 
type, another the sheep; one woman represents the cow 
type, another the cat. We cannot remove ourselves 
altogether from our earliest associations. I could not 
get your type fixed in my mind. It has kept me awake 
for two nights. You seem to go back behind the animals, 
and the origin of your face must I think be looked for 
in the age of vegetation. I am sorry for that, because 
it means entire helplessness, though it also means beauty 
of a pure and soft type without any taint of animal 
passion. ” 


Heather 


1 16 

This was a very roundabout way of comparing her face 
to a flower. Still there was a compliment at the end 
of it. 

“ I heard Miss Budge allude to you as a destructive 
little thing; by which she meant to imply, I fancy, in the 
shockingly loose phraseology of the ordinary middle-class 
female, that you resemble Helen in your sway over the 
hearts of men.” 

Winnie said nothing but merely sat and wondered who 
Helen might be. She wished she could summon up the 
courage to ask the question, because knowledge of her 
ignorance might possibly frighten him away. 

‘ ‘ Helplessness is attractive to the strong, ’ ’ he continued 
in his intolerable manner, supposing, if he was capable of 
any self-detachment, that he was impressing her pro- 
foundly. “It is also, as I have mentioned, an attribute 
of plant life. Plants are indeed so helpless that Nature 
has to protect them in various ways. Otherwise they 
would become extinct. Many are given the power of 
propagating rapidly. Others are provided with thorns, 
poison, a nauseous taste or smell. Plants, unlike animals, 
always act on the defensive, even when they appear to 
be most offensive. Others are given the power of with- 
standing intense cold and strong gales. There is this 
heather, for instance. You will notice, if you examine 
it closely, that its leaves and flowers are specially con- 
structed so that the plant may not be destroyed by the 
winds. This brings me to the type which I imagine you 
represent; the plant delicate in appearance, yet actually 
hardy enough to endure the strongest storm. I thought 
out all that as I was walking on the moor,” he concluded 
naively. 

“ It sounds very clever,” faltered poor Winnie. 

“I am a very clever man,” came the astounding 
answer. “ I took the highest honours at school and 
college. There was nobody to touch me when I was 
up at Oxford. Once I refuted the Master of Balliol,” he 
said in a reverential voice. 

Winnie was quite dazed. She didn’t know what to 
think of the man who was blaring his unpleasant trumpet 
at her ear; whether he was too ill to control himself, 
or half-mad with learning, or utterly diseased with self- 


About a Half-holiday 117 

pride. There was one explanation for it, a perfectly good 
one, but it did not occur to Winnie, as it had not occurred 
to any of the other patients. It was not madness, nor 
was it conceit; but something that the poor wretch could 
not help, and could not fight against with any hope of 
success. 

“ Now I will come more particularly to yourself,” said 
Halfacre, as pleasantly as he could. It was certain he 
was doing his utmost to make himself agreeable; he was 
not trying to be rude, but on the contrary he was striving 
to make her happy and comfortable in his own queer 
way. “ First I will ask your age.” 

Winnie gasped at that. The idea of a man, almost a 
stranger, demanding her to tell him her age. She set her 
teeth together and tried to be resolute. Her beautiful 
marshland was becoming rapidly a hard and pitiless sort 
of place. 

” I asked your age,” said Halfacre quite sharply. 

” Twenty-four,” murmured Winnie. Again she 
couldn’t help it. He would keep on looking at her. 

” I am twenty-six,” he said with sudden simplicity. 
” Where do you live?” 

So it was all to come out, the sordid secrets she had 
tried so hard to keep; and now everybody would know, 
and proud Berenice would not hug her any more or call 
her sweet, and the ” other one,” whoever that might be, 
would not show her any more pictures or tell those 
glorious fresh-air stories. It was all up with her, and 
she would have to be common little Winnie to the end 
of the story. 

Halfacre nudged her with his elbow and made her 
start. It was a beastly thing to do but she couldn’t 
get away from him, and he was smiling and thinking 
he was quite polite. 

” In Keyham,” she gasped. 

” Then you are probably a poor girl?” 

” Oh, don’t tell them. Please don’t tell,” cried Winnie 
piteously. ” I can’t help telling you because you make 
me somehow. But I have managed to keep it to myself, 
and they don’t know anything about me, and I could not 
stay on if they knew.” 

Halfacre showed no surprise at this outburst. He 


Heather 


1 18 

too had his secrets, which he was able to keep, as there 
was no strong-minded person to force them out. He 
plucked a scrap of moss, opened his tin box, threw it in 
and snapped the lid upon it. All his life he had been 
accustomed to take notes, and the piece of moss was a 
note which would remind him when he came to turn 
out the contents of the box of what Winnie had said. 
It was one of the commonest mosses, only the undulated 
hair-moss which grows all over the moor, and therefore it 
would recall to him at once Winnie’s position in the world. 

“ I shall not say anything. I am poor too,” he said, 
as if he was willing to exchange confidences. “ Are your 
parents living?” 

“ My mother is. My father has been dead several 
years. ” 

” Has your mother any income?” he went on, as if he 
was asking after her health. 

” A very little, not enough for us to live on,” she 
answered in her helpless way, having given up the 
struggle to resist because she knew it was useless. 

” Then you work for your living. What is it? Shop, 
dressmaking?” he suggested, making his question sound 
very sordid. 

” Post-office,” she faltered, her eyes beginning to feel 
hot. ” It’s a grocer’s shop, and the post-office is in 
connection with it. It’s a small box railed off, and I 
stand in it all day. There isn’t any time to sit down. 
The shop is at the corner of a busy street. There is a 
public-house opposite.” 

” Where were you born?” 

” At Princetown in the middle of the moor, up in the 
clouds,” she said wistfully. ” My father was a doctor. 
We were there until I was fourteen. I used to go to 
the top of Crockern Tor where the supreme court was 
held and sit there for hours. Whenever they missed me 
they would send to Crockern Tor. I was so well and 
strong in those days. I was planted on the top of the 
moor, and growing there, until I was pulled up and 
thrown away in the smoke. I became ill then. I couldn’t 
live out of the wind.” 

Halfacre made another note by picking a piece of 
heather and throwing it into the tin box. Winnie would 


About a Half-holiday 119 

have gone on talking happily of her early home, but 
her companion had other questions. He soon banished 
the thoughts which made her happy by recalling those 
which made her miserable; and he did so in the most 
direct and insolent way possible. 

“ Who pays your expenses at the sanatorium?” 

“ I don’t think I can tell you. It’s a very great secret.” 
Then she began to shake and search for her handkerchief 
which wouldn’t be found. 

” Oh I see — charity,” he said sorrowfully. 

” It’s not,” said Winnie, as indignant as she could be. 

“Not your mother?” he went on, with that appalling 
directness which she could not resist. 

She shook her head quickly, then let it rest upon her 
shoulder. 

“It is a man. There is no other deduction. It is not 
the grocer whose shop you work in?” 

“ No, no,” said Winnie, weary and persecuted,^ long- 
ing to have it over. “ It’s that man.” 

After that a good cry would have been natural enough, 
and possibly it would have occurred had it not been for 
Half acre’s extraordinary conduct. He passed at once into 
the wildest passion, tearing up the heather, forcing his 
fingers into the moss, the veins starting from his fore- 
head, while his eyes became like those of a lunatic. 

“ How much longer are we going to stand them?” 
he shouted. “ The rich and idle who buy and break the 
poor. I know what you are saying. There is the 
tyranny of the Church and the tyranny of the rich, and 
between them the wretched poor sneak down to their 
graves by the easiest way they can find. The time is 
coming. We are breeding six times as fast as they are. 
The sun of our liberty is rising. The time is not far 
distant when the people shall be in power, and those who 
have oppressed them for centuries shall have their fill of 
poor man’s law, and poor man’s workhouses.” 

Winnie was only conscious that he was not looking 
at her. The sun was going down behind the range of 
tors at the back of the marsh, and over the peak of 
Steeperton the moon was just visible, almost full, and 
looking like a circle of tissue paper. Halfacre was looking 
at the moon and raving at her, possibly because there 


120 


Heather 


was some connection between his own ideas and that 
unsubstantial looking- circlet. His fire burnt down and 
his rather wild eyes returned to the girl’s frightened face, 
and his seemingly irresponsible tongue went on to ask — 

“ Why do you work in that post-office and submit to 
tyranny?” 

” To make my living,” said Winnie, with some spirit. 

” What does he say to it, this brute who has bought 
you, keeps you, buys your clothes, has your body and 
soul in pawn?” he cried, beginning to rave again. 

Fortunately Winnie did not grasp the whole of his 
meaning. He spoke so fast and confused her, and she 
was under the spell of his eyes again and could not think 
much. 

” It’s the man to whom I’m engaged,” she faltered. 

Halfacre became himself again when he heard that. 
He threw away a handful of moss, which he had been 
clutching as if it had been a tyrant’s throat, and said 
coldly — 

“You misled me. Who is he? What is his occupa- 
tion? Tell me all about him.” 

Evidently this man had taken possession of her and 
Winnie could not escape. After all it would be a relief, 
she thought, to tell the whole story and let another 
judge and pass sentence upon her. Halfacre was ex- 
pressing friendship in a very extraordinary way, but still 
it was a kind of friendship. He was insulting, but that 
was only his manner. There was a kindness for her be- 
neath the surface. He was thrusting his support upon 
her, and she had to accept it. 

“ He is a clerk,” she said, shrinking as she spoke and 
drawing her fingers quickly across her eyes. “ His name 
is Ernest Hawker.” 

“ Go on,” he said when she hesitated. “ The name is 
all right. It belongs to the land, like mine.” 

“ He used to come to the office to buy stamps, and 
after a time would stay and talk to me,” said Winnie. 
“ Then he found out the time I went home, and met me 
at the door. I was rather grateful, for the streets are 
rough. After a time he came to see mother, and he took 
us to the theatre, and I — I became engaged to him, 
though I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it.” 


About a Half-holiday 121 

“You don’t care for him. You must get out of it. I 
will get you out of it. The first principle of life is 
that of liberty,’’ Halfacre cried violently. “ Only those 
men and women should come together who are com- 
pelled to do so by nature. Everything — engagements, 
ties, matrimony itself — must remain subordinate to that 
principle. ’’ 

Winnie shivered at his passionate doctrine. She did 
not know much, but was able to guess that any state 
founded upon such shifting foundations would have to fall. 

“Then it happened,’’ she went on, when he became 
silent. “ I was always getting ill. I never knew what 
it was to be really well after we left Princetbwn. At 
last all the horrors began and the doctor told mother 
what it was, and my only chance would be to get back 
on the moor away from the smoke.’’ 

“ The towns that the oppressors have built, the fine 
houses for themselves, the dirty slums for the people,’’ 
said Halfacre without violence, but in a slow and venge- 
ful manner. “ They took the land from the people and 
gave them instead a few square yards of filth. Not con- 
tent with that they created a disease and gave them 
that too. The disease of civilisation, the poor man’s 
disease, they call it. The debt is a big one but we are 
beginning to pay a little interest on it. Whenever I hear 
of a rich man dying of the poor man’s disease I laugh. 
So you came here. And this man is paying for you?’’ 

“ We had no money,” said poor Winnie. “ I couldn’t 
work any more. It was a matter of life or death, so Mr. 
Hawker said he would send me here and pay for me 
and help mother in the meantime. I must marry him, 
or else pay back all the money he is spending. It is for 
mother’s sake I am trying to get well, not for my own. 
Without me mother would have to seek charity ; and 
when I get well enough, and — and am married she will 
live with us. There is no way out of it.” 

“ We will put an end to it,” said Halfacre, speaking 
as if he was her brother or uncle, instead of a stranger 
who had known her only a few days. “ You must have 
liberty. Everything is a crime which stands between us 
and liberty. Nothing is a crime which removes one 
or more of the barriers. What is he like?” 


122 


Heather 


Winnie was beginning to admire this man who seemed 
so strong and lawless ; her clinging self went out to him, 
and she forgot his insolence, or called it depth of feeling. 
He was not exactly conquering her difficulties of proposing 
any solution of them. He was simply brushing them 
away like so many black cobwebs. He seemed to her 
to be talking sound common-sense when he said that 
every one had a right to be free. Why not? Are men 
and women beasts in cages, kept and confined for the 
sport of gods, fed with the bread and water of affliction, 
their jaws muzzled and their claws cut, their minds fret- 
ting, and their bodies' growing mangy with disease? 
Not a bit of it. They are not beasts, because of that 
soul which slips out of the cage and enters the wind, 
and flits towards the sun, and defies the gods, and 
declares it created itself. 

So much for the philosophy of Halfacre, who thought 
himself a professor when he was only a freshman. Men 
and women are beasts and they cannot get out of the 
cage, and their minds must fret and their bodies grow 
mangy with disease. They are not even perfect beasts, 
for their very inventions represent creation run mad ; 
genius is certainly madness, and inspiration a form of ill- 
health. They cannot make or copy anything real. They 
play with iron and steel and make monstrous toys out 
of them. But they cannot copy a buttercup or make a 
finger-joint. 

“ I know him,” said Halfacre, when Winnie had done 
describing “ that man,” adding nothing to his attrac- 
tions. ” He is a common object of towns, the mindless 
man who represents neither good nor evil, but is like a 
fly buzzing about a wall searching for congenial smells. 
He wears his hat on the back of his head and laughs 
whenever he says anything. He talks about football one 
half of the year and about horse-racing the other half, 
making the same remarks every year and not knowing 
that he has ever made them before. His vocabulary con- 
sists of two hundred words and a few strange oaths. 
That’s the man who is buying you by instalments.” 

Halfacre made a note of the fact by picking a sprig 
of whortleberry and throwing it into the tin box. 

“He is not well off. It is very hard upon him,” 


About a Half-holiday 123 

said Winnie miserably. “ He is spending his savings to 
keep me alive.” 

She shivered, for mist was coming across the marshes 
and all the bogs were steaming. The river had become 
cold, the heather was getting colourless, and the invisible 
stickles were singing rather sadly. It was the mournful 
time of Sunday when people get dejected and go to church 
to grin at one another and forget themselves and the 
cursed loneliness of life. 

Halfacre got up and wiped his muddy boots in the moss. 
“ They won’t suspect anything at the sanatorium,” he 
said. “ I shall be the same as ever, but we shall meet 
outside and I’ll show you the way to escape. We must 
have liberty — all of us.” He shut his little tin box with 
a snap, well-satisfied, as if he had just caught Winnie 
and had got her safely inside. 


CHAPTER IX 


ABOUT ANOTHER HALF-HOLIDAY 

Most poor people dream about what they will do when 
they become rich; the time wasted in that sort of castle- 
building might make them so if it was used properly. 
They will surround themselves with every possible luxury, 
and give as much as sixpence a week to charity ; they will 
entertain less fortunate relations, but not often; they will 
buy a lot of women and live uxoriously. Dreams are 
nothing if not selfish. A man sees himself set in the world, 
shouting at others to get out of his way, and beating down 
opposition with a money-bag. Sometimes he sees himself 
a professional philanthropist, which is still more selfish, 
and necessitates the hiring of a brass band to make a 
noise while he signs his cheques. A man may keep him- 
self on the roll of fame for centuries, merely by bequeath- 
ing a thousand pounds to provide honest old women with 
red-flannel petticoats at Christmas. The women must be 
honest and the petticoats must be made of red flannel. 
The women only grumble at the petticoats, declare they 
are made of rotten stuff, and they wouldn’t be seen wear- 
ing such things because of that very respectability which 
has won them the gift ; and then they pawn the things and 
buy themselves gin. But the philanthropist lives on. He 
has bought his title to fame in very much the same way 
as the poor old woman buys her glass of gin. 

There are other dreams, supremely selfish, for when a 
dream ceases to be so it is called a nightmare, but not 
sordid. Wealth is not necessarily a part of these, and 
in the best of them all it does not even enter. There is 
the dream of laurel-leaves, the poet’s dream, which is 
somewhat out of fashion now, because anything, even a 
pewter-pot or half-a-crown, is preferable to the ancient 

124 


About another Half-holiday 125 

prize of victory. And there is the dream of a face, the 
lover’s dream, and the only one worth having- because it 
is unspoilt by metal and corruption. These will creep in 
later on, but the dream itself is free of them. The un- 
reality of that dream is the glory of it. That face is not 
really what it appears to be, just as the dreamer is nothing 
like what he thinks he is. It is not the face which appeals, 
but the celestial atmosphere surrounding it. The dreamer 
imagines that it is the face which causes the atmosphere, 
when the converse is the case, as he soon discovers when 
the dream becomes realised and he and that face are 
linked together, and they nearly swear at each other over 
the first butcher’s bill. 

George the artist was a day-dreamer. Fair women did 
not trouble him at nights, as his digestion was well 
enough, and angelic dream-faces demand an unsettled 
liver. It was when he sat by the window and looked 
down upon Wheal Dream that he had visions. He was 
not a mystic; such black arts as witchcraft and spiritual- 
ism made no appeal to him; materialism interested him 
far more, and he made the body and its needs the theme 
of nearly all his work. He thought it unnecessary for 
the artist to inquire into the spiritual side of things, as 
there was sufficient in matter to satisfy the most exacting. 
The moor in a mist, the wheal at moonlight, were as far 
as he ever went in his dream-pictures. He scoffed at the 
canvases of the old masters with their rough and raw 
ideas, and their favourite skyful of tumbling angels, pot- 
bellied and heavy as lead. George had a direct way of 
doing things. With pencil and paper he reckoned that 
an angel would require several geological periods to fly 
from the nearest fixed star to the earth, and he couldn’t 
see how the celestial being was ever going to find the 
time to get down and home again. That being so, a pair 
of bird’s wings could be obviously of no use to an angel, 
and therefore it was a ridiculous affectation of art to 
depict them with wings. And George was a failure as an 
artist. 

He was driving nails into a boxful of pictures, while 
Bubo reposed on his perch, watching in the cynical fashion 
which he had acquired since attaining to years of dis- 
cretion. Every time the hammer descended Bubo gave 


126 Heather 

a little jump, possibly to signify that the noise hurt his 
nerves. 

“ Twenty pictures — sunsets, moonrisings and mists such 
as never were,” said George to his winking partner. 
” You on a lump of rock, representing the king of the 
night, you miserable humbug ; Jimmy and his baby among 
the ferns as rustic innocence, a feature of unreal life ; 
Father leaning on his sticks waiting for the cows to come 
home, a pretty study of noble old age but without any of 
the less pleasing parental details ; Ursula carrying a load 
of furze home, another common feature, although it is a 
thing she has never done in her life. Twenty pictures at 
two-and-ninepence apiece, which is all I get from the lineal 
descendant of Barabbas who, when I suggest he isn’t 
paying all he owes, clutches his beard and swears by the 
God of Abraham and the God of Isaac that he is ruining 
himself for me. Here we are. Bubo, an English gentleman 
and a British owl beneath the thumb of one of the dis- 
carded race. Fame must be a fine thing. Bubo. It gives 
us a chance of getting our pride back.” 

The little owl closed both eyes and was sorry for him- 
self because his master was making such a noise. When- 
ever George was not working or dreaming he talked aloud, 
directing his remarks at Bubo, who had in return given 
him many a quaint inspiration. 

” We are two gentleman’s sons, at least I have always 
regarded you as such, though you may be a lady’s 
daughter for all I know,” George went on, as he went 
round and round the packing-case whacking at it with his 
hammer. ” Your pedigree is a fine one, Bubo. You 
earned the distinction of being regarded as the symbol 
of wisdom merely by sitting still and looking sleepy, which 
is exactly how a good many of my species acquire the 
same reputation.” 

The box was finished, pushed into a corner, and George 
turned his attention to a parcel of manuscript, and bustled 
about the room looking for paper and string, chatting all 
the time. 

” It’s only during the last few days the idea occurred 
to me that I am a gentleman. I had forgotten all 
about it until I went working down by the Ford. You 
see I have painted the Brunacombe arms to adorn the 
premises; three fools of pelicans vulning themselves, ac- 


About another Half-holiday 127 

cording to the jargon of heraldry, or as the soul-inspiring 
Gumm observed when I attempted to explain the thing 
to him, ‘ trying to lug their guts out,’ which reduces 
heraldry into a far simpler form. You wouldn’t feed your 
legitimate offspring on your blood, you’d let the beggars 
starve; but then you’re the bird of wisdom. It’s no joke 
to be a gentleman in these days unless you can support 
your title. It’s illegal to go out with an axe and cleave 
skulls, which I understand was the usual practice of my 
ancestors. Grandmotherly legislation has put a stop to 
that. The working-man has the best time with his two 
or three hours a day, a week off when he wants it, and 
a pension if he strains himself. It’s the gentleman that 
does the work. ‘ Why du’ye get up so early and go to 
bed so late?’ Ursula asks in the words of the Psalmist. 

‘ Don’t ye get tired o’ they pictures and writings?’ 
There you are. Bubo. Our work is a game to her. When 
she sees me cleaning a window — because when she does 
it herself she makes it dirtier — she says, ‘ Ah, now he’m 
working.’ When I scribble until two o’clock in the 
morning I’m amusing myself. If you have extracted the 
necessary amount of nutriment out of that piece of string 
I’ll find a use for it.” 

Bubo had picked up the piece of string and was nibbling 
it thoughtfully. He gave it up without a whimper, and his 
master began to tie up the parcel. 

” Yes, my friend, you’re quite right in your supposition. 
With that cold, critical eye upon me it would be useless to 
dissemble. This is not a treatise upon art, nor any learned 
monograph upon geology, botany or ornithology, but it is. 
Bubo — and at this point we must blush — it is a novel. We 
all come to it at last. It is as inevitable as death and the 
poor-rate. We paint our pictures and we compose our 
sonnets with the virtue which is its own reward, until one 
day the devil enters into us and we write a novel. This 
one is by S. Bubo — not Samuel, my son, but Strix — which 
was the name awarded to your early ancestor on a certain 
wet afternoon in the Ark; proposed by Father Noah, a 
simple old sailor who lurched about the deck inventing 
such nautical phrases as ‘ shiver my timbers but it’s dirty 
weather ’ ; seconded by Ham and carried, though the 
youngest boy, who was a terror for books, demurred, 
saying it was ridiculous to give a bird a Latin name so 


Heather 


128 

many hundreds of years before the founding' of "the city of 
Rome. They were all prophets in those days, Bubo. 
They knew everything that was going to happen, and it 
must have led to a lot of confusion. I suppose Noah was 
always looking for his chronometer and wondering what 
they dratted boys had done wi’ ’en, and bothering his head 
about Greenwich time and latitude and longitude ; and then 
remembering he was several thousand years ahead of the 
times. It must have been a dreadful trial to the poor old 
skipper to think of the glass of grog and the strong cigar 
which were not for him because he was so ^ antedated. 
Tobacco wouldn’t have been much use to him without 
matches, and he hadn’ t got any; and, to add insult 
to injury, he would have known that his poor old tub 
would be adopted as a trade-mark by a firm of British 
match-makers ages after it had run aground on 
Ararat. No wonder prehistoric prophets were always 
lamenting. ” 

Bubo made some quaint noises, flapped his wings, 
scuttled from one end of the perch to the other and did 
extraordinary things with his eyes. Then he composed 
himself, with his head on one side, and an expression 
which seemed to say, “ I hope the temporary lapse from 
gravity was hot noticed.” 

” I suppose you’re pleased with yourself,” said George, 
” just because I am shifting the responsibility of this book 
from my shoulders to your wings. As a matter of fact you 
ought to be ashamed. This is what people will call a dis- 
gusting book, but they will read it. Bubo, and talk about 
it, and beg their friends not to look at it, which is the 
best of all advertisements. We’re a shabby couple and 
we’re poor; there’s money in this sort of thing, and who 
will ever know we wrote it? People will declare that 
nobody but a lady could write such stuff. You will observe 
that the parcel is already covered with flies. 

” One has only got to live with a philosopher to dis- 
cover what a humbug he is,” George went on. ” Any one 
seeing you perched on a tor would remark what a sublime 
creature you were, but to live with you changes the matter 
entirely. There is a pound of vice to every square inch 
of your feathered body, and your cry which sounds so 
impressive at night is really nothing more than the patter 


About another Half-holiday 129 

of the professional loafer, the wife-and-five-children-and- 
ashamed-to-work sort of cry. The goose is called a fool 
because he looks and behaves like one out of sheer 
honesty. You are regarded as a wise bird because you are 
a successful fraud. I’m a cross between the two of you, 
a goose in private and an owl in public, with the advantage, 
such as it is, of a mind, and the disadvantage of a complete 
set of vices which cannot be employed owing to lack of 
opportunity. Most of us human creatures are respectable. 
Bubo, because there is no opportunity to be anything else. 
They say it is hard to be good; but I do assure you, on 
my honour and by my ancestral pelicans in the wilderness, 
that it is much more difficult to be wicked.” 

Bubo woke up suddenly and ploughed his beak under 
his wing in search of a troublesome tenant. 

” Even a philosopher cannot attend to the frailties of 
his fellow-creatures when he’s got the itch,” said George. 
” Nothing brings us down to our proper level like a flea. 
He skips from a dunghill into the clothes of a queen, and 
one place is to him just as good as the other. We do not 
eat our stowaways, however. Bubo, although that is no 
doubt the ultimate end of most creeping things. I mention 
the fact as an aid to your own advancement. If you 
refrain your children may, and thus the particular family 
of owls to which you belong will advance a step in the 
process of evolution, leave the other owls behind, and 
approach a little nearer to the sublime species, of which 
I am a singularly poor specimen, who pretend to know 
good from evil and virtue from vice, although what one 
man calls good another calls bad — perhaps you had better 
eat your flea. Bubo, and remain as you are.” 

The artist caught up his parcel and went out of the 
house as fast as he could. He always acted upon impulse, 
having learnt by experience that if he once stopped to 
argue with himself nothing was done. It was a fine after- 
noon, and he hadn’t been a good walk for ages. He would 
post his parcel, then tear about the moor like a wild 
school-boy until dark. Had he stopped to think he would 
have sat down to finish a picture or start upon something 
fresh. As soon as one task was over another began. 
There was never such a thing as a whole holiday for the 
busy workman of Wheal Dream. 

9 


130 Heather 

The Stannary road was noisy, which was not unusual, 
but the sounds were those of mirth. One of Ursula s 
lady friends had come across to visit her. ^ She was not 
a recognised humourist, although any one might have mis- 
taken her for such, because Ursula was howling with 
laughter, John was bumping his uncouth body against 
the wall with spasmodic hee-haws, and as for poor old 
Father, he was shaking and coughing, and tears were 
removing a respectable quantity of highly fertile soil from 
his cheeks. Uncle was standing at his gate, hideous and 
patient, and as grave as Bubo. He - was adding to his 
unpopularity and living up to his unneighbourly reputation 
by not laughing. Poor old Uncle had nothing to laugh at, 
because he had just been compelled to open his money-box, 
and that tragedy weighed upon him so heavily that he was 
unable to perceive the subtle humour in the remark of 
Ursula’s friend, “It be lovely weather we’m getting.’’ 
That was what the noise was about. 

Presently Ursula recovered sufficiently to remark, 
“ Yew’m a proper old stranger,” and this witticism set 
them off again, until Father had to shuffle away and sit 
down and hope he hadn’t broken a blood-vessel. They 
were really getting on nicely and understanding each other 
well. It was a conversation by means of shrieks of 
laughter, meant to express the best intentions and good 
neighbourly feeling ; the ordinary way in which such 
women greet one another. Directly they meet they begin 
to howl like jackasses. It is merely the friendly smile of 
recognition, only they overdo it somewhat and keep it up 
too long. After the paroxysms of welcome they are able 
to settle down and talk quietly. 

When George appeared there was silence; Uncle touched 
his hat, but the others looked at him very much as sheep 
regard a wandering dog. When he observed that the 
weather was fine they did not laugh, because he was not 
one of them and there was no humour in what he said. 
When the moor gate had clanged and the big figure could 
be seen swaying off across the common, Ursula’s friend 
remarked, after a preliminary titter, “ He’m the gentle- 
man.” This was the finishing touch; and they had to lead 
Father into the kitchen and pat him on the back until 
he stopped choking. 


About another Half-holiday 131 

When George had posted his parcel, and had resisted 
the pressing invitation of the post-mistress to tell her what 
it contained, though to be sure it didn’t really matter, as 
she could easily slip the string off when he had gone, he 
made his way up the steep road leading to the high moor. 
He thought he would go to the slopes of Miltor, where he 
could find white heather, knowing exactly where to look 
for it, and he thought he would bring back a bunch and 
leave it at the sanatorium with his kind regards. He 
would not ask that it should be given to any one in par- 
ticular, but probably some would find its way to the right 
source. George had been injured that day at Chapel Ford, 
but he did not talk about it. Even Bubo, who heard every- 
thing, had not been told about the new disease. The germ 
was latent, the symptoms had not asserted themselves, 
and the disease had been prevented from reaching the 
malignant stage by the sight of Halfacre wearing that 
sprig in his coat. George said nothing as he walked up 
the side of the moor; he could not think without speaking 
aloud, and he could not confide to the listening wind what 
it knew very well already, that he had reached the mouth 
of the pit which is really the only landscape feature of the 
world of vast importance, because every man that lives 
has to tumble into it and lie groaning until he is put out 
of his misery. 

A few dimples play the mischief with history, pretty 
faces win battles, and a smile is at the bottom of nearly 
every tragedy. That is why there is no escaping from the 
eternal matter. Only men who are not men can escape; 
and even they must go mad sometimes to feel no man- 
hood stirring in them when they face the hot and throbbing 
pages of history. 

George was upon a part of the moor which the patients 
frequented, therefore he was not surprised when he saw 
Berenice walking in front of him, going slowly and poking 
at the moss with her stick. The girl was lonely, for Tobias 
would have nothing whatever to do with her, and Winnie, 
she feared, was getting into bad company. They were not 
allowed to go out together now that Winnie was so much 
stronger, but Berenice had seen something that morning 
which made her think. Deep lanes were made for lovers, 
and they seem also to have been especially constructed 


132 Heather 

to meet every demand of those who may wish to peep at 
them. 

“ A fine girl, George,” said the artist. ” Just the one 
if you weren’t a poor devil. Wonder what she would say 
if I asked her to put her affections into the things of earth 
and my business. I wonder if I can get away without her 
seeing me.” 

That was always his way. When he saw a handsome 
brown-faced girl strolling the moor his first idea was that 
it would be very pleasant to walk with her; and the next 
prompted him to hurry off in the opposite direction. Some 
men are made like that; the peculiar state of their nerves 
compels them to escape from that which they desire, or 
when confronted by the woman of their heart to impress 
upon her that she is one of the most contemptible things 
alive. George had not nearly reached that stage when one 
face becomes supreme and nervesr are relegated to the 
background. The sprig of white heather intervened. 

Berenice saw him and stopped. She waved her stick, 
which straightway became the wand of the magician 
enchanting George. Evidently she wanted to speak to 
him, and he had to go, deciding to tell her that he had an 
important engagement to fulfil on the black spurs of West 
Miltor. The girl seated herself on a lump of granite 
waiting for him, criticising his appearance, admiring his 
fine head. As he came near she smiled and said to herself, 
“Poor thing! he wants a nurse.” 

Since that wonderful morning beside Chapel Ford 
George had become more conscious of his deficiencies. 
The light was so strong and pitiless. It showed up every- 
thing — his dreadful old clothes, shocking boots, his bushy 
beard full of dust, his snuff-stained nostrils. He could not 
rid himself of the pernicious habit of snuff-taking. He 
began to pull out his handkerchief, saw the colour of it, 
and pushed it quickly out of sight. His hands were 
covered with paint and ink, his collar was in its second 
week — he was always meaning to put on a fresh one, but 
it was such a nuisance — he wore no tie, but his beard 
concealed that deficiency fairly well; he had no cap, and 
the wind had blown his long hair into a delirious tangle. 
He was, in short, the fine picture of a tramp ; but no amount 
of shabbiness, neglect, or untrimmed hair could do away 


About another Half-holiday 133 

with the strong features which broke through them, the 
high forehead, clear eyes, and well-bred nose. Nothing 
is harder to conceal than gentility. Money cannot buy it, 
tailors cannot make it ; those who are naturally common 
cannot imitate it; and those who have it cannot put it 
off. Fine feathers make only shrieking parrots, dirty 
linen does not turn the clever man into a fool, and a 
gentleman will always look better in rags than a ploughboy 
in fine raiment. 

“ Where are you going?” asked Berenice, looking at 
him in a way which made him put his hands into his 
pockets, which were useless for any other purpose, as he 
had worn them into a couple of holes. This fresh girl 
was such a horrible contrast. She was so dreadfully 
clean, like a newly whitewashed wall, and there did not 
appear to be a speck of dust on her clothing. He won- 
dered however girls managed to live up to such a high 
standard of freshness and still find time to go about and 
exhibit themselves. 

He nodded over the hills and far away to where the 
mountains made a fine rugged background like that of 
an Italian opera and said, ” To West Miltor. ” 

” Work of some sort?” 

” No, pleasure. My first half-holiday for months. The 
factory is closed until eight o’clock this evening. Then 
the machinery will start again and some sort of rubbish 
will be manufactured. I may pick up a little raw material 
on the moor.” 

He laughed in his boyish way, pulled his hands out of 
his pockets and rubbed them together briskly, then noticed 
she was looking at them. ” I know they’re dirty. It’s 
honest dirt, paint and ink,” he said defiantly. ‘‘I’ll wash 
them when I get down to the river.” 

‘‘I’m going your way. I am sent as far as the military 
road,” said Berenice. She jumped up and stepped off 
beside him, her little brown boots keeping time with his 
shapeless monstrosities. 

‘‘ It won’t matter if any one does see us,” said George 
apologetically. Those boots were such a contrast. ‘‘ Every 
one knows me. I’m the gentleman. I don’t work for my 
living. I sit in my workshop all day and most of the 
night amusing myself.” 


Heather 


134 

“ You and Mr. Leigh are the two most popular rnen 
about here. Every one likes you and him,” said Berenice. 
“ Even our awful Twins, who are not very keen on people 
socially better than themselves, have nothing but nice 
things to say about you two. ‘ Leigh is made of the right 
stuff,’ says the publican. ‘ So is Georgy Brunacombe,’ 
says the sinner. ‘ Right for once, fathead,’ is the answer. 
Whenever you pass our place there is some such remark 
as, ‘ There goes the man who wasn’t born asleep like you 
were.’ They can be complimentary, you see, even if they 
have to insult each other while being so.” 

” Popularity is good when it isn’t bought,” said George. 
” I hope Leigh doesn’t buy it with roses. I like him 
very much,” he went on quickly, ” but he is so hated in 
his village that sometimes it is hardly safe for him to go 
into the street.” 

“Those people don’t count,” said the girl contempt- 
uously. “ What does it matter to a gentleman whether a 
lot of clodhoppers like him or not? They are a horrible 
set down in Downacombe. The man at the post-office is 
a Socialist, and he got a lecturer to come there who 
poisoned the minds of the villagers and put the idea into 
their heads that they were all downtrodden wretches.” 

“ I am not speaking against Leigh. I am not saying 
anything now which I have not said to his face,” George 
answered slowly. He was a poor man, much cleverer 
than the Rector of Downacombe, and he knew how hard 
he worked for a very few sovereigns. “ But I shall always 
maintain that a man has no right to retain an official 
position if he cannot perform its duties.” 

“ Mr. Leigh is perfectly willing to work. It is the 
villagers’ own fault if they won’t let him,” said Berenice. 
“ He has week-day services all through the year, and if 
nobody attends them you can’t blame him for that.” 

“ I said he cannot perform his duties, not he will not. 
The clerical work of a country village is at present 
nothing. Most healthy men would regard it as a recrea- 
tion. Compare it with the amount performed by men of 
some talent for a pound or two a week. I think every 
village parson who gets a hundred a year, in this Noncon- 
formist west-country at least, is very much overpaid. 
Take the two parishes adjoining Downacombe; one is 


About another Half-holiday 135 

very small, but the stipend is five hundred pounds, and 
the living- has been awarded as a plum to a man already 
well off, who is also a bachelor ; and the other is large and 
straggling, but the stipend is much under two hundred 
pounds, and the incumbent hasn’t got a penny apart from 
it, and he has about a dozen children. Something must 
be wrong there.” 

” But then there is always something wrong in these 
things,” said she, rather plaintively. ” None of us get 
what we want, and there are prizes in every profession. 
I can quite understand how you feel about it. Heaps of 
artists don’t work half as hard as you and yet get much 
larger incomes. It’s that beastly thing called luck. But 
it makes life more epjoyable, a bit of a gamble, and we 
all like gambling, don’t you think? I should hate to 
think of Mr. Leigh losing a single penny of his income. 
He’s such a dear.” 

” Well, we won’t argue,” said George. ” I expect you 
are right. I am a bit sore. Successful men get too 
much, unsuccessful men too little. The gamble is well 
enough for the winners, but the losers, who stake their 
last and see it go, have to find themselves quiet corners. 
Sometimes I think a big levelling up would settle things, 
but it wouldn’t. Luck would soon assert itself, and 
every successful man would absorb the shares of seven 
unlucky ones. We all started level at one time, but the 
unlucky man quickly came upon the scene. You can’t 
level up intelligence and ability — not to mention morality. 
Who is that under the white sunshade below the second 
tor?” 

“ The perambulating mushroom is Budge, senior maiden 
of our establishment. Don’t look that way or she will 
wave and stampede after us — you, I mean. She is always 
talking about men. I tell her she ought to buy one, as 
she has plenty of money. What should you say if she 
proposed to you?” 

” The same as an editor when he has read my latest 
sonnet. ” 

“That would be rude, I expect. When a lady asks a 
man to marry her it is his duty to say ‘ Yes, please.’ ” 

George looked at the girl, then wagged his beard 
solemnly, and made up his mind to tell Bubo all about it 


Heather 


136 

when he got home. Berenice was as solemn as the little 
owl, there was not a sign of laughter on her brown face, 
and her eyes were upon the granite. The artist had never 
been addressed so lightly by a girl before, and he couldn’t 
understand it. Had she taken a liking for him? But 
that was ridiculous. He compared the boots again and 
almost burst out laughing, then addressed himself men- 
tally, “ Don’t be a fool. She is only trying to be pleasant 
because she’s a bit dull and she knows you have a hard 
time. ” 

“ Too fast,” she said. ” I have got what Gumm calls 
a tin lung. I also have to control a troublesome thing 
called a temperature.” 

George slackened speed at once and apologised. “ It’s 
hard to walk slowly on the moor. The space is so great 
that you feel you must go your hardest to make any 
progress at all.” 

” You’re solemn,” said Berenice, as if it was the most 
natural thing in the world to say. “Too much living 
with owls in old dream-houses. Why don’t you clean your 
nails?” she said crossly. 

George looked rather bewildered, then laughed and 
examined the offending rims, not sorry that she had 
noticed them, because now he needn’t trouble to keep them 
out of sight. He admitted they were rather worse than 
usual, saying cheerily, ” It’s no use fighting against 
nature. I’m a working-man, and the labourer lives in 
contact with the soil. He can’t throw down his tools 
and boil his fingers seven times a day. Gloves and mani- 
cured fingers are good enough for kings and priests, but 
they contribute nothing to the world’s knowledge. We 
are planted in the dirt,” said George. “We grow out of 
it, live on it, go back to it. There’s no escaping from it, 
and most of us can’t spare the time to try. All the master- 
pieces of the world were produced by dirty fingers.” 

” What horrible nonsense !” said she. 

“ Not a bit of it. I don’t believe a genius has ever 
lived who could abide clean linen. Homer I fancy was 
something like old Father Chown to look at, Shakespeare 
wrote with the garden soil of Stratford on his hands, and 
Michael Angelo did wonders with garlic-scented fingers. I 
doubt if any of the founders of religion ever had a bath.” 


About another Half-holiday 137 

“ There is no excuse for you, anyhow,” said the girl 
severely. 

‘‘I’m not a genius certainly,” laughed George. ‘‘ So 
much is true ; but I am always turning the wheel which 
communicates with that centre of the nervous system 
called the brain, and that keeps me clean inwardly. A 
rolling brain gathers no rust. It’s like the little river 
down the cleave; you couldn’t imagine slime on a moun- 
tain stream, though it has black bogs and stagnant moss 
on each side. My brain, such as it is, can run between 
a pair of dirty hands like the Okement between its bogs ; 
and as for the moss — here it is.” He caught at his beard 
and tugged it from side to side. ‘‘ It’s only a parasitic 
growth, lichen on a rock, ivy on a tree.” 

‘‘ Old man’s beard in a hedgerow,” she added. 

‘‘ No,” he said rather bitterly, shrinking from the 
thought of age. ‘‘ Clematis, traveller’s joy, virgin’s 
bower — call it that.” 

‘‘But there are white hairs, long and silvery. One is 
upon your shoulder, so old and tired,” she said maliciously. 

‘‘That’s no sign of age. It is mimicry,” he said. 
‘‘ My beard is growing grey out of sympathy with my 
work and surroundings. I am so fond of strong whites 
and cool greys in my painting; and the light up here is 
strong and white, the rocks are white, so are the rivers 
and the mists, and even the pink heather up there is 
bleached by this everlasting whiteness. If I went and 
worked on the scarlet clay of mid-Devon my beard would 
turn red.” 

‘‘ If I make you a present of nail-scissors will you use 
them?” she asked, frowning. 

‘‘ I will. I’ll trim Bubo’s tail this very night. The 
little rascal is as ragged as Diogenes.” 

‘‘ What a pity it is,” she murmured; and then sharply, 
‘‘ For heaven’s sake throw that horrible handkerchief 
away. ’ ’ 

‘‘ It is rather brown, but only snuff and turpentine, good 
honest stuff,” said George. ‘‘ And it’s not a handkerchief, 
as you may see by the frayed edges. I tear up my old 
sheets for paint rags, and they get into my pocket some- 
times. You think I live in an uncleanly way,” he went 
on, throwing the discoloured fragment into a bog, while 


Heather 


138 

Berenice murmured, “The best place for it,“ and poked 
it down with her stick. “ Very likely I do, for my various 
occupations are messy ones, and Ursula Petherick brings 
more dirt into the house than she takes out, but there is 
such a thing as clean dirt. Look at this fresh brown 
peat, the sand and gravel washed down this cart-track, 
and those little black roots. You can’t call them unplea- 
sant, for they are sweeter and purer than the stuff we are 
made of ourselves. They have nothing in common with 
smoke, soot, and town-mud. They have the wind and 
the rain upon them. They are the cleanest of all things. 
When I lie upon the peat and burrow my nose into it I 
seem to smell the breath of life. I’d like to die up there,’’ 
said George, pointing to the huge arc of Cawsand bending 
across the clouds, “ lying on the top of a grey slab of 
granite where I could heave my soul out on the heather.’’ 

“ Don’t use such words,” said Berenice, with a shiver. 
“ I am an invalid.” 

“ So am I in my spare moments. That’s dirt in its 
worst form and unavoidable; the filthy little fungi that 
multiply inside and choke us; the foulness of the sick- 
room — that’s why I love the brown peat and black heather- 
roots, the clean sand and gravel. That’s the dirt in my 
wheal house. It’s sand under my nails and bits of heather 
in my beard ; clean dirt which kills malignant dirt. My 
house is full of wind and sun, sometimes rain and mist. 
That’s not uncleanliness.” 

“ It’s a pity,” she s%hed again. 

“What is?” said George, full of self-conceit now that 
the vapours of nervousness had been dissipated. 

“ I’ll tell you,” said the girl. She was admiring him. 
His personality was so strong when it was reached; so 
were his words. When he lifted his head it reminded her 
of stone, not because of its power, for it was not powerful, 
but because the clean-cut rocks are upon the mountain-top 
where the rain has chiselled them; and the hair which 
shivered about that head was like the heather trembling 
with its imitation of^ weakness about those rocks ; like 
the wiry heather which is not strong and yet sees the 
granite worn away. “You’re a man,” she said, “and 
that’s why I’m sorry. There are millions going about 
like sheep saying, ‘ Baa, baa. ’ There are very few who 


About another Half-holiday 139 

fling themselves on life and try to find out what it is 
made of and what it was given for.” 

“ Why, those are my own words,” cried George in 
amazement. 

” I know they are,” she laughed. 

” The philosophy of George Brunacombe, represented 
in art holding a one-legged owl.” 

” As quoted by Winnie Shazell,” said Berenice rather 
mockingly. 

His countenance changed, and not another jest was 
forthcoming. 

‘ ‘ Winnie Shazell who strolls about the lanes with that 
delightful young Halfacre,” she went on, noticing his 
hands and the movements of them. “ How many pieces 
of paper have been blown out of your window? Down 
they fly into Wheal Dream, and Winnie gathers them up 
and reads diligently, and frowns her pretty face into lines 
committing them to memory. You should use paper- 
weights. ’ ’ 

“ I believe it is Bubo. He throws them out. I’ll talk 
to him when I get home,” said George, forcing himself to 
speak lightly. “ Why are you sorry for me?” he asked 
swiftly. 

Berenice began to hum in a bee-like and provoking 
manner; and all she said was, “ Here is the river where 
it is divided into several branches like the one in Paradise. 
You cross and go on. I stay this side. It sounds solemn 
'and death-like,” she laughed. 

“ Why are you sorry for me?” he said. 

“ Oh, well, you have a lot to put up with. Ill-health, 
hard work, little profit. Some of those bits of paper were 
rather confidential,” she said almost flippantly. “There, 
I am tormenting you,” she went on with a mocking kind 
of penitence. “ I said you were a man, and so you are, 
a g'ood, conceited man like Mr. Leigh. Only you should 
think certain things, not write them down; not write a 
detailed description of the ideal lady — and then let the 
wind blow it out of the window.” 

George stood upon the first stepping-stone, with his 
back towards the girl, and said nothing. 

“ But you mustn’t scold dear little Bubo,” she called; 
for Berenice adored four-footed beasts and fowls of the air. 


CHAPTER X 


ABOUT MATRIMONY AND THE LANE WHICH WAS CALLED 
MORTGABLE 

There was a marriage in Downacot by Metheral, and 
every one was invited to bear witness that Molly Bidlake, 
youngest daughter of Farmer Harry Bidlake, was respect- 
ably transmuted into Molly Moorshed. People came be- 
cause it would have been an insult to stay away and 
because there would be beer. No foreigners were pre- 
sent; the affair was parochial; and the house door was 
set open to receive guests at an early hour, although it 
was understood that no refreshment would be forthcoming 
until the church had completed its share of the work and 
the register had been signed with various blots and 
crosses. 

The ceremony itself was not a dignified proceeding, 
although it satisfied the demands of the law, which was 
represented by the local constable. Old parson had been 
past work for a long time. He was in bed when the 
wedding party presented itself at the locked-up church, 
and declared that he wasn’t going to get up to bury any 
one. When it was explained that the ceremony that day 
was the less lively one of matrimony he said there was no 
hurry, he would be along presently, and the party could 
run about in the churchyard and play the old village game 
of Tom-come-tickle-me while he was getting his trousers 
on. At last he shuffled across in carpet-slippers, rough 
and ready hands helped him to assume suitable vestments, 
and bride and bridegroom quickly received the benediction 
of holy Church ; while the congregation nudged one another 
solemnly, the father of the bride and the bridegroom’s 
mother mingled their tears together, and screams came 
from the porch where some small boys were terrifying 

140 


About Matrimony 14 1 

small girls by trying to slip grave and respectable church- 
yard frogs down their backs. 

There was one slight incident outside which might have 
been considered unseemly in some places. Plenty of people 
stood at the gate, shouting remarks which were probably 
intended to be classed in the same category as “ God bless 
the bride and bridegroom,” although they were less 
elegant ; and a certain very bold-faced young woman, who 
was obviously in that condition known as interesting, 
selected for her greeting the disconcerting statement, 
” Don’t forget Laura Westlake be at the wedding with a 
baby, the gift of the bridegroom.” It was said, however, 
that she had played the same trick on others. 

The living-room at Downacot Farm was arranged accord- 
ing to custom with a long table down the centre, benches 
on each side, and chairs along the wall. The place had 
received a general scouring, the china cows on the high 
mantel had been washed, and the pair of brass candle- 
sticks polished. The warming-pan hanging by its strap 
to the wall was like a rising sun ; and an alien repro- 
duction of His Royal Highness the Landlord, beautifully 
framed in fir-cones and acorns, had been cleansed of fly- 
marks. Downacot was a lonely place full of ferns, bog- 
flowers, and masses of yellow “drunkards” in spring; 
a horrible mud-hole all winter. The dirt of four big hills 
trickled into the hamlet. A tributary of the Taw River ran 
through, crossing the narrow road, then tumbling down 
into fields beneath the usual clapper which made a bridge, 
though it was often submerged in winter when the usually 
modest and maiden-like tributary sometimes became a 
rough, brawling-man kind of torrent. “ Any one ever been 
lost here?” asked a nervous stranger one day, wondering 
how he was to get across. “ Naw, sir,” replied Farmer 
Bidlake cheerfully enough. “ Old Sammy Paschoe, him 
as wur a stone-cracker up to Metheral, did get drownded 
here one year, but us found ’en next day.” 

Downacot was one of those surprises which Dartmoor 
delights in. Approaching over the moor there was appar- 
ently nothing ahead except the big, gently-cubing hills, 
but suddenly the ground parted asunder, the hills seemed 
to fall back, making a bason cracked on four sides ; and 
in the muddy sediment at the bottom was Downacot with 


Heather 


142 

its tumble-down cottages, big furze-bushes, little nameless 
stream, and its human and floral drunkards. 

Downacot Farm was a poor holding; merely a cottage 
and long barn in the middle of a muddy yard, with a few 
hilly fields behind divided from each other by hedges of 
stone topped with holly-trees of a great height. No 
repairs had been done for several generations, and hard 
weather was dragging the building down. The Bidlakes, 
like most commoners, found their hands useless when it 
came to a little matter of carpentering and masonry. 
They couldn’t afford to employ professional folk, and it had 
never occurred to them that loose stones, rotten beams, 
and crumbling thatch could be repaired or renewed by 
their own efforts. Gregory Breakback with his wonderful 
crowbar would have restored Downacot in a month or two ; 
but Gregory was unlike his neighbours. He was there, 
neat and strong as usual, attired in a black suit which 
had belonged to his father a generation back, having 
taken it out of the chest where it reposed from one year’s 
end to the other upon sprigs of rosemary to keep the 
moths away. The clothes only appeared for weddings and 
funerals. There was only one suit for festivals and holi- 
days ; but as the smiling philosopher would have said, 
“One man can’t get into two lots o’ clothes.’’ The 
guests filed in with an expression of hopeless melancholy. 
It was indeed a sad time for them all, a wedding being of 
all village festivals the most dismal. The occasion called 
for lugubrious countenances. There were the usual jokes, 
of course, but they were uttered tragically. There was 
laughter too, but it reached the proper depth of dejection 
except in the case of Gregory and an uncle of the bride- 
groom who had disregarded etiquette by becoming pre- 
maturely intoxicated. Gregory’s fine mirth troubled the 
party. It was true that he laughed just the same at a 
burial, but his mirth then was right and proper. A funeral 
called for jovial faces and plenty of good cheer. It was 
an occasion for merriment, and every one came to it with 
the certainty of enjoying a thoroughly festive time. But 
this was a wedding, and things were different; it was a 
time of deep drinking and mournful ballad singing. A 
funeral is a time of hearty eating, intermingled with stock- 
taking and congratulations. Still there was an under- 


About Matrimony 143 

current of cheerful expectancy, for it had been rumoured 
that Farmer Bidlake was going to do the thing in style, 
by emulating the example of the highest folk in the land 
and supplying the guests with a wedding breakfast. There 
were whispered suggestions of turnip-pie, and a good 
many noses were at work seeking for satisfactory evidence 
as to the truth of this rumour. 

“ I ain’t et turnip-pie vor I couldn’t tull ye how long it 
be,” said one old farmer with a lugubrious glance around 
him, as if he more than half suspected that his lengthy 
abstinence from this particular luxury would cause the 
entire universe to cave in suddenly. 

” Please to tak’ your seats,” invited Farmer Bidlake; 
and the black-coated party clattered readily over the stone 
floor towards chairs and benches, and seated themselves 
gingerly, while one of the younger Bidlakes, who was 
the musical genius of the district, placed his concertina 
in readiness upon the table in front of him. Several 
drifted about for some time before they could decide upon 
the seat which it was likely they would occupy for a good 
many hours if their heads didn’t give way. Old topers 
profited by long experience to obtain comfortable corner 
nooks. 

Metheral folk were there in force ; old Brokenbrow 
babbling of graves and headstones, and not far off Father 
Chown inciting his rival to wrath by coughing insistently 
and throwing out sinister hints appertaining to his own 
age and diseased condition and the law of mortality. 
There was Ursula in a sealskin coat though it was summer, 
but it was the finest thing she had, for it was real fur, 
bought with the proceeds of, her folly; and beside her was 
John wearing a wonderful collar which made him keep his 
eyes upon the roof. His mouth was wide open, and when- 
ever any one touched him he took it as a sign to laugh; 
and did so with pain and difficulty, for the raw collar 
rasped his neck, being much too small for him. He had 
washed his neck, too, and that might have made it sore 
and irritable. The Wheal Dream contingent had come 
over in the manure-cart. Uncle Gifford was not there. 
It was too far to walk, and he had been so unneighbourly 
lately that Ursula had to inform him there was no room 
for him in the cart. The bride was led to the seat which 


Heather 


144 

had been reserved for her, where she went on giggling 
with the steady persistency of a running stream. 

“ Aw, poor maid, I knaws how she feels,” said Ursula 
to a stout lady who overlapped her chair considerably. 

“ Us knaws. Us ha’ been through it,” said the big 
lady. ” I ha’ been through it twice, and second time it 
come easy enough, but the first time — wull there, my dear, 
if any one so much as put a finger on me I got the 
asterisks to wance and fair screamed.” 

” Her nerves be fair upsot,” explained Ursula. 

“All a-tremble like. I knaws how it be,” said the 
matron, making her chair creak dismally. ” Yew could 
ha’ blown I about the kitchen wi’ the bellows day I wur 
first wed. But that wur thirty years ago, and I ha’ buried 
plenty since. Buried ’em proper tu, as yew knaws, cold 
beef and bottled beer wi’ the lot, and never less than two 
carriages. There bain’t none in Metheral parish who can 
say they ha’ spent more than me on funerals. I had six 
black-edged handkerchiefs vor my first husband, and I 
used the lot, my dear.” 

Ursula did not like such boasting-, as she had no exploits 
of her own to narrate. So she changed the subject by 
suggesting that it would be a pretty compliment to the 
bride if one of them addressed her suddenly by her recently 
acquired title. 

The proposal did not find favour with the large lady. 
” Don’t ye du no such thing,” she whispered. ” ’Twould 
be an awful shock to the maid, and weak hearts run in the 
Bidlakes. ’Twould mak’ she choke vor certain. Let she 
bide. Her ’ll be better vor a glass or two o’ beer.” 

” Same wi’ I,” said Ursula. 

” Aw, my dear, us be old birds,” said the matron 
cheerfully. ” I tull ye I wouldn’t mind taking number 
dree, vor a man of your own du be a bit homely like when 
all’s said agin ’em. There warn’t many nerves about I 
the second time, yew may depend. I went through it like 
a — wull there, like a lamb, my dear.” 

Farmer Bidlake’s eldest daughter, who worked with her 
husband in the fields and only differed from him outwardly 
by the addition of a skirt and the lack of a beard, came 
striding in with the pie, which old Risdon, had he been 
living and present, would certainly have classed among his 


About Matrimony 145 

“ remarkable things ” in the Forest of Dartmoor. It was 
a mighty thing, square, white and solid, and the smell of 
it was good, reaching to the uttermost parts of Downacot. 
Folk brightened up and forgot to be sorrowful. Farmer 
Bidlake was unquestionably marrying the last of his 
daughters in style. A huge bowl of cream was brought 
and descended like an avalanche into the valley of the 
great pie. Every one’s glass was soon brimming with 
beer or cider. The concertina began to squeak and titter, 
and the publican of Metheral, who occupied the foot of the 
table as chairman of the musical programme, announced 
that Gregory Breakback would favour the assembly with a 
song. 

“ I ain’t ever seed a maid married wi’ turnip-pie avore,” 
said the stout lady in a critical whisper to Ursula, who was 
unfastening her sealskin jacket to prepare for work. “ ’Tis 
a North Devon habit, but these Bidlakes ha’ foreign blood 
in ’em sure ’nuff. I wur married first time wi’ brandy,” 
she added, harping again on her past grandeur. ” Stars 
on every bottle, my dear, but, love ye, they wur nought to 
the stars I seed afterwards. Second time ’twas gin and 
watter, and not enough to mak’ the neighbours vitty like, 
but then I had to come down a bit being a widdy. Widdies 
don’t get sent off like maids, my dear. They’m second- 
hand like. Yew’ll find it so when yew takes your next, 

I reckon.” 

This was not cheerful hearing for John, but he was 
fairly well used to it, as Ursula had often run through 
a list of eligibles from whom she might make a selection 
when she was at liberty to do so. That strangling collar 
was just then far more in his mind than any possibility 
of his wife’s widowhood. He was wondering how ever he 
would be able to get drunk. 

“ Us wur married wi’ whisky,” said Ursula proudly. 
” Warn’t us, John? Don’t ye stare up to the roof, yew 
old mazehead,” she whispered crossly. 

It was no use appealing to John. There had been so 
much whisky since that he couldn’t remember. 

” I had a sister, and a butiful maid her wur,” said the 
matron, rousing herself for a special effort. ” Her married 
coals and timber, and a fine thing for she ’twas, but her 
bain’t a widdy yet, though she’m expecting to say ‘ Thy 


TO 


Heather 


146 

will be done ’ avore very long. Her went off wi’ vizzy 
wine, my dear, proper Frenchy trade, vizzy wine wi’ golden 
corks and wire to keep the bottles from busting. I mind 
the wire, vor I cut my fingers wi’t. ” 

Ursula gulped down her beer with a feeling of disgust. 
The stout lady was beginning to tell fishy stories. It was 
preposterous to suppose that any sister of that common 
old body had ever married “ coals and timber.” But con- 
versation was over for a time, as Gregory was upon his 
long straight legs singing one of those simple ballads 
which have been passed on from one generation of moor- 
land folk to another from ” tyme out of minde,” as the 
presentment of the Perambulators has it, and remembered 
word for word although probably they have never been 
written down. Gregory’s voice was like himself ; not 
musical, but big and strong, hitting the ears like north 
wind and overwhelming all such puny sounds as the run- 
ning water outside, the squealing concertina, and the 
bride’s perpetual giggling. It seemed to make the old 
place shake, to detach scales of soot from the rafters, and 
to jar the cloam upon the dresser. There was a manhood 
about Gregory which made the room seem small. 

In the meantime the vast pie was being cut and quarried, 
and portions were handed round. Tom Moorshed, the 
bridegroom’s uncle, who was already in a disgraceful con- 
dition, grabbed his share greedily and then confided a 
little matter, which had been upon his mind for some 
time, to the lady who had the honour of a seat next to 
him. ” I be agwaine vur to be purty nigh drunk,” he 
explained with laborious chuckles. He was afraid she 
might not have noticed it. 

” So I should say,” said the lady rather crossly, because 
he would keep on breathing at her. 

“If so be as I be drunk,” said Uncle Tom, ” I 
apologises. ” 

” Yew’m welcome,” said the lady, as there was ob- 
viously nothing else to say; and after all Uncle Tom had 
only offended against good manners by taking an unfair 
start. 

A farmer, who was some sort of semi-detached relation 
to every one present, claimed the attention of the company 
while he delivered a panegyric in the heroic style upon 


About Matrimony 147 

turnip-pie. According to him it was the foundation-stone 
upon which the fabric of perfect health was built. Be- 
tween the merits of turnip-pie and mother’s milk for babies 
there could be no two opinions; and the verdict was not 
in favour of the mother. It was the best food for adults 
because it filled their bellies and kept them tight for hours. 
It was specially adapted for old folk, as chewing was 
reduced to a minimum and the loss of grinders was not 
felt. Turnip-pie was, in short, angels’ food; for it gave 
them meat enough. The speaker might have been adver- 
tising a patent medicine. 

“I mind first time I tasted ’en, and I’ll tull ye,” he 
went on, as he wiped a creamy finger and thumb upon his 
neck-cloth. ” ’Twas to Thurlestone Barton, where I 
worked as a lad for dree shilluns a week and me grub, 
and a pack o’ wool to tak’ home to mother Christmas. 
Us made our own clothes them days, and mother wur cruel 
artful wi’ spinning-wheel, I tull ye. Wull, first winter I 
wur there a gurt snow starm blowed up over Dartmoor, 
and the winds and drifts wur tremenjus. ’Twas Sunday 
morning when it cleared a bit, and varmer ses to I, ‘ Tam,’ 
he ses, ‘no alleluias vor yew to-day, me lad.’ ’Twas a 
bit of a hit at I, vor I wur cruel fond o’ singing in chapel 
them days. ‘ Get outside and cut a path to linhay,’ he 
ses. So I run out and shovelled till the sweat rolled 
down me face, and my belly got as empty as an old bell, 
and when missis called I to come in vor dinner I warn’t 
long a-getting there, yew may depend. Her ses to I, 
‘Tam,’ her ses — they alius called I Tam, though my 
name wur Robert same as it be now — ‘ du’ye like turnip- 
pie, me lad?’ ‘ Can’t say as how I du, or as how I don’t,’ 
I ses. ‘ I ain’t never tasted ’en far as I knaws,’ I ses. 
Lord love ye, us never had they fancy dishes to home 
them days, but I could ha’ yet an owl just then, I wur 
that pinched. Wull, missis fetched the dish in and brought 
a bowl o’ cream and put ’en in, and I began to feel watter 
drap-drappiting from me mouth when I sees that pie as 
white as the druvven snow outside, wi’ a gurt piece of 
fat bacon to the bottom of mun. ‘ Try a little and see if 
yew likes ’en,’ ses missis. So I sot down and took my 
spune and had a little. I didn’t knaw if I would like ’en 
or no, yew see. Missis ses to I, ‘ Du’ye like ’en, Tam?’ 


Heather 


148 

‘ Lor, missis,’ I ses, ‘ I hadn’t time to taste ’en. ’ So I 
passed me plate over. Missis asked I agin. ‘ Wull there,’ 
I ses, ‘ I ain’t got the taste of ’en yet.’ So I passed me 
plate over. Varmer began to laugh and he ses, ‘ Steady, 
Tam, thee bain’t shovelling snow, lad.’ And missis 
laughed tu, and ses, ‘ Have ye got the taste, Tam?’ I 
ses, ‘ Ees, missis, I likes ’en cruel. ’ So I passed me plate 
over. But there warn’t none left.” 

More mournful ballads followed, and the concertina 
wailed a dirge-like accompaniment to each, one tune differ- 
ing from another according to the skill of the musician, 
which was slight. The jugs of liquor began to pass round 
a little quicker, but faces were not yet shining, for the 
beer was thick and the cider rough stuff ; both required 
time to make a cheerful countenance ; and the stout lady 
muttered something disparaging about folk who were 
married on anything lower than bottled stuff. She had 
never been married on liquor from cloam and hoped she 
never should be, although, as she admitted, widows at 
second-hand did have to put up with something while there 
were so many maids about. Old Brokenbrow did what he 
could to supply the proper note of good-feeling by express- 
ing the pious hope that the next happy meeting of the 
neighbours would be to celebrate his funeral. But it was 
reserved for Uncle Tom Moorshed to dispel the atmosphere 
of depression and make the proceedings properly hilarious. 
He was a dull-witted old fellow at the best of times, one 
who was always making mistakes and getting hold of a 
wrong impression; and Brokenbrow ’s entirely personal 
statement culminating with the word funeral caused him 
to misinterpret the nature of the ceremony of which he 
was a conspicuous and somewhat clouded witness. 

” I wun’t say it bain’t sad, vor it be,” he stated with 
a cheerful hiccup. “This time last year us didn’t think 
us would be here to-day. Aw, poor liddle maid. Us wun’t 
see the like o’ she again. I’ll trouble yew vor a spuneful 
o’ cream, Varmer Bidlake. ” 

There was silence for a few moments. The guests were 
not quite certain whether they ought to laugh or not ; the 
giggling of the bride was not to be taken as a cue, as she 
was irresponsible. But John Petherick mis-s wallowed 
some beer^ and the explosion consequent upon his error. 


About Matrimony i^g 

which had a damping- effect upon those who sat opposite, 
was misunderstood by Uncle Tom to be a note of sympathy 
with his lament. 

“ Her was a gude maid,’' he declared. “ Didn’t give 
her folks no trouble not from the day her wur born to the 
day her wur took. Wull, they can’t say us ain’t put she 
away respectable.” 

” Yew’m a dafty old mazehead. Uncle,” shouted the 
bridegroom. ” Us be wed to-day.” 

” I knaws ’tis her last bed,” said the fuddled old fellow, 
who thought he was being argued with. ” I bain’t blind, 
nor deaf neither, and I ses ’twas a high-class funeral such 
as us can be proud of. There bain’t no village on Dart- 
moor what puts volks away better than us du. Bit more 
bacon if yew please, Varmer Bidlake. ” 

” He’m like all they Moorsheds. They’m a proper lot o’ 
drunkards,” murmured the woman who was sitting next 
to Gregory on a bench beside the wall. 

“Wull, my dear, I never did see a shed on Dartmoor 
what warn’t mucky,” he replied, but wasting his parable 
on dull ears. However, the concertina was squeaking 
again, and some one was singing to cover Uncle Tom’s 
little mistake, a song with a chorus which warmed them 
up and made them feel more like a party of children snow- 
balling, and when the tumult ceased somebody proposed 
the health of the none too happy couple, which made 
Uncle Tom object noisily and declare it was poking fun at 
the dead. When he had been quieted by the simple method 
of refilling his mug, and the bride began to show signs of 
recovering from a mild attack of hysterics, young Moor- 
shed wrestled privily with his tie, wiped his moist 
moustache, lurched upright, smiled with sheer nervous- 
ness like an old-fashioned villain of melodrama, and finally 
informed the company that he was no manner of good at 
speechmaking. The neighbours wouldn’t let him off. 
They called with one voice for a speech. They became 
actually merry at the sorry spectacle of the bridegroom’s 
incapacity. Most of the men had been through it them- 
selves, and they didn’t see why he should escape. So the 
young man had to say something, though he felt as if his 
mouth was stuffed with lead. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he said at last. “ Us be here 


Heather 


150 

to-day to get married, and — and us ha’ been and got 
married sure ’nuff. Yew ha’ treated all of us, me and 
my wife, I should say, and those of us as ha’ been and 

got married to-day ” There he got entangled, owing 

to the foolish use of that stumbling-block to the inexperi- 
enced orator, the parenthesis ; but there was plenty of 
sympathetic applause, which Uncle Tom roundly abused as 
blasphemy, and he attacked the sentence again, “ Yew ha’ 
treated me and my wife as us desarves to be treated.” 
Then he sat down, covered with confusion, and glad to 
think that little trouble was over for his lifetime. 

Gregory sang again, bringing storm into the room and 
making the black rafters creak; and when he settled 
again upon the bench the woman beside him murmured 
in admiration, ” Yew du sing lovely.” 

” Wull, my dear, I wur walking on Dartmoor one day 
wi’ my mouth open, and a lark flew in and I swallowed 
’en. Ever since then I’ve abin a singing man,” he said 
in his quizzing way which passed her comprehension. 

‘‘ ’Tis a long time since I wur at a wedding,” she went 
on ; and then added, ” It must be proper to be wed.” 

” Wull, my dear, I reckon an hour of matrimony can du 
a man more gude than a month of anything else can in a 
lifetime,” he said slyly, and watched the effect of his 
nonsense. But the woman was grave enough ; his words 
sounded very wise, and she extracted from them all the 
sense that she required. 

” Why ain’t yew got a woman?” she asked. 

” I alius gets down to market five minutes tu late, when 
the shops be all shut,” he said. 

” Get along wi’ such rubbish,” she said, pushing at him. 

Gregory began to observe his companion, and as he did 
so made more room for her on the bench. She was not 
fair and she was forty, but her skin and eyes were good 
and her mouth was red. She had a tangle of hair, which 
any one romantically inclined might have called golden, 
although ordinary folk would have made her look round 
with the cry, “Carrots.” She was inclined to be stout, 
her feet would have filled a man’s boots; yet she was a 
woman, with some of the manner and smile which make 
any four roofed walls a home. She belonged to the sex 
which when it likes drives away loneliness like the morn- 


About Matrimony 15 1 

ing sweeping mist from a cleave; and when it likes 
crowds the house with devils. Gregory knew little about 
this Ada Mills beyond her name. She had been away 
from the district for a good many years and had only 
lately come home. He looked at her again because of her 
sex, not because she was Ada Mills, and remembered 
that her old parents were respectable. Then he wondered 
if she had ever looked out from the door, to marvel 
at the shivering stars and the wind coming across the 
hills. 

The neighbours were livening up and beginning to feel 
at home, and the songs were taking upon themselves a 
distinctly festive character; love-interest was giving way 
to the more practical Roast Beef and Union Jack of old 
England, not forgetting the malt liquors of the same 
country, and the waving signboard which attracts more 
readily than the flag. Some of the older hands were 
already finding it just as comfortable on the floor, and 
Uncle Tom was falling as steadily as any barometer in 
April. Farmer Bidlake the host was talking maudlin of 
his departed wife, who had been a woman “ such as 
bain’t found in these days,” and was declaring between 
deferential hiccups his intention of marrying again some 
day, not from any selfish motive, but merely out of respect 
for her memory. Old dirt-encrusted Griffey, the granite 
merchant, who was one of those beings who defy all the 
laws of hygiene, and drive men of science and preachers 
upon morality to despair, as he was nearly eighty, had 
never used a bath in his life, was not often sober, and 
yet enjoyed perfect health, produced a sovereign, fastened 
it to the table with what looked like a splinter of red 
sandstone but was actually a human forefinger, as if he 
was afraid it might leap away suddenly like one of those 
insects whose habits he had ample opportunities for study- 
ing, and challenged any one to try and beat him at the 
game of gold production. Chown and Brokenbrow had 
come to words, and very nearly to blows, over the grave; 
and Father so far forgot his company manners as to 
declare, if he had much more of old Willum’s nonsense, 
he would go and strangle poor dame Loveday Broken- 
bone in her bed, so that his rival at least should be de- 
prived of the resting-place which made him ignore the 


Heather 


152 

last and least commandment so persistently. John was 
happy at last, for his weight had increased by several 
pints, and his collar had long ago parted asunder and 
was flapping on each side of his neck like a pair of cherubic 
wings; while Ursula and the stout lady were both weep- 
ing noisily and declaring they hadn’t felt so happy and 
comfortable for a long time. The publican, who was half 
asleep, managed to exclaim, “Chorus, gentlemen,” from 
time to time, his consciousness being something like that 
of a cuckoo-clock; and the bride, who was recovering 
from her distressing nervous condition, nudged her hus- 
band sharply and said that if he drank any more she 
would “bide to home wi’ vaither. ” Young Moorshed 
pondered this saying, and had the sense to comprehend 
that matrimony very quickly transforms the shy filly into 
a grey mare. 

Presently somebody discovered that important religious 
rites had been neglected, or rather had not been completed. 
The Christian ceremony had been performed as the law 
demanded and with all due gaiety, but the more solemn 
ritual of paganism had still to be observed. A ladder 
had been placed beside the nuptial cottage, which was 
quite close, on the opposite side of Downacot bason across 
the water, bundles of heather had been cut and window 
shrouds made; but the lazy workers were so busy indulg- 
ing themselves that they hadn’t plugged up the chimney 
or blocked the windows before the wedding party arrived. 
The young couple could not be allowed to enter their 
future home if it was left open to all the spirits of mis- 
chief and every evil eye in the neighbourhood, so Gregory, 
who was the local father of tradition, offered to go and 
make the cottage secure. He was glad of the excuse to 
leave that tainted atmosphere and get out into the wind. 
He noticed that Ada Mills had hardly been drinking at all, 
and perceiving a possible bond of sympathy between her- 
self and him he asked her, “ Who be a going to keep the 
foot o’ the ladder steady?” 

“ Wull, I be a proper old weight. I’ll come wi ’ye,” 
she said. 

They crossed the yard and got into the narrow lane, 
with its roof-like slope to the water, the trees of its hedges 
leaning over to make a bower. It was warm in Downacot 


About Matrimony 153 

because the wind passed over the rim of its bason, flying 
as it were from edge to edge. They stepped across the 
clapper bridge, reached the cottage, and set to work. 
It was a heavy silence after that noisy kitchen. Gregory 
noticed that Ada looked well in a cottage, moved well, 
and worked easily, without bustle or confusion. Her 
smile seemed to improve, but he liked her better when she 
didn’t talk. He thought of the broken hearthstone up on 
Moor Gate and the vision he had seen bending there after 
the manner of one making preparations for supper; but 
it was not Ada Mills, nothing like her, though it might 
have been her younger sister if she had one. It was 
some one with a mind, who could look out and say, 
“ What a wonderful thing it is to see the stars, and how 
the wind seems to blow them along.” Would Ada Mills 
say anything like that? He would not remember that she 
was stout and somewhat homely if she could. Gregory 
didn’t know that his position in life belonged to one class 
and his mind to another, and that wherever he went he 
must be a misfit. 

When the cottage had been made devil-proof, and every 
breath and beam of air and sun excluded, they went out. 
Ada did not want to rejoin the wedding party, and Gregory 
had never intended to go back. Before them the lane 
writhed upward to the high moor and Metheral, between 
its big hedges which made it like a tunnel. The turf 
covering those stone banks was a field of white stars, 
gleaming stitchwort, with silver sorrel and stiff grape 
hyacinths. No rank weeds grew in Downacot, no docks, 
no nettles; only the pleasant things, virgin-like white 
flowers, and upon the other side of the furze-bushes, in 
the bogs at the very bottom of the bason, were those fat 
opulent drunkards the kingcups, filled with gold dust, like 
so many rich men sitting over their wine. Ada and Gre- 
gory began to ascend the lane, walking side by side 
because they were of different sex, as so many walk, with 
no very definite idea. 

At the edge of the hamlet was an eyesore, a little wob- 
bling tin house of God erected by a former incumbent of 
Metheral who had a certain amount of money but no 
appreciation of art. Its unpainted ugliness was an insult 
to Downacot, which was small enough to have been 


Heather 


154 

Spared ; but Christianity and patent-medicines have no 
kindness for scenery. The chapel had hardly ever been 
used for its intended purpose, although for several years 
it had been of great service as a cowshed ; and beside the 
tin edifice, half-toppling like itself, appeared a row of 
far more picturesque stacks, one of fern, another of 
browse, a third of faggot-wood, and one of vagges 
thatched with heather to keep the rain out. The narrow 
road was an ancient trackway once known as Mortgable 
Lane, probably because a rent was paid for the dead wood 
found in Downacot; but it had become changed genera- 
tions ago, like almost every name upon Dartmoor — there 
are very few which have not known corruption — into 
Market Lane, perhaps because the venville rents were 
rendered to the manor upon fair or market day. There 
are two kinds of border lanes : the open and the bowery ; 
both are as tortuous as the mind of a theocrat ; but 
Market was a bowery lane. 

Gregory picked flowers as he went along; they looked 
weak little things in his great strong hands. He glanced 
from time to time at the young woman, for forty is still 
youth upon the hill-tops ; searching for another bond of 
sympathy, wondering if so much contented flesh could 
ever be wasted by romance, whether any conception higher 
than that of children on the old wearisome lines of squall- 
ing ineptitude was possible; whether Ada Mills could 
ever be made pregnant by a line of poetry or become the 
mother of an idea which could boast of a separate exist- 
ence. He might try her, lead her astray from the sedi- 
ment at the bottom of Downacot bason to the heather on 
the top of Moor Gate. He might set her in the wind, 
watch it stretch the garments upon her, and see if she 
could respond, say something about the life and strength 
of it and what a wonderful clear distance it was to the 
sky ; or whether she would merely scream and blow about, 
and declare she couldn’t stand it. 

Gregory had life still to win ; for It is a chamber-mate 
that makes life, and loneliness is life decapitated. It was 
for him a tangible vision about the broken hearthstone, 
or the same stone with the ghost blown round about it like 
the dead leaf of a summer he had never seen. 

“ So yew ain’t been to a wedding vor a long time?” he 


About Matrimony 155 

said, drawing- the stalks of a few starry stitchwort into 
the rim of his hat, but not looking at her. 

“I hate ’em, slobbering old things,” said Ada, wonder- 
ing how old he was. 

” Wull, my dear, it du change volk. Courtship be fine 
weather, and matrimony be often a frisk o’ wind just 
’cause volk don’t get suited. Two birds in a cage will 
peck sure ’nuff if they bain’t the same breed. When 
yew’m married there’s no turning round. Yew must go 
straight ahead just as we be going up this lane.” 

Ada made no reply, though she was willing enough ; but 
the words were not there. 

‘‘There’s no getting out o’ the lane when yew’m in 
it,” he went on. ‘‘ Yew must go on to the end on’t, be 
the weather what ’twull. At times it be wull enough, and 
at times it be bad, and it be mostly rough and dirty. It 
bain’t wide, vor no more than two can get along together, 
and there bain’t no room in it vor quarrelling. Yew can’t 
see over the hedges what’s beyond. May be gude or bad, 
but yew don’t knaw. Yew can’t see forward, vor the 
lane twists, first one way, then t’other, and what’s round 
the corner yew don’t knaw. May be an old donkey, or 
a heap o’ stone, may be a lot o’ vuzz in flower, may be 
a bog vull o’ drunkards — yew can’t tull what’s beyond 
till yew gets round; and there bain’t no reason in one 
saying ’tis a lot o’ vuzz, and t’other saying ’tis a bog o’ 
drunkards, and tearing your tongues over it. Best to bide 
quiet and wait.” 

‘‘ What vor?” asked Ada Mills, understanding the last 
few words but nothing more; and even then wanting an 
explanation. 

‘‘Till yew’m round the bend,” he answered. ‘‘There 
be plenty o’ turns, but yew gets to the last one in time, 
and then yew comes out on the moor. It be all sudden 
like; one step yew’m in the lane and yew see nought but 
the hedges; next step yew’m out and can see right across 
Demshur. ” 

‘ ‘ Why of course us can see along when us gets up on 
Dartmoor,” said the puzzled, woman. 

‘‘ Don’t it seem mazing to see so much?” said Gregory, 
again trying to strike her mind with his and produce 
some kind of spark. 


Heather 


156 

“They ses yew can see more’n twenty churches from 
the top o’ Cawsand,” she said blankly. 

“ Ever been up there?’’ he asked. 

“Not me,’’ she cried. “What would I want to be 
dragging myself up there vor?’’ 

“ I’ll tull ye,’’ he said half fiercely. “ Yew goes up to 
feel the wind tearing at ye like a mazed beast trying to 
break ye, and yew can feel yew’m the strongest. Yew 
can get above the mist and look down into it, and feel 
yew’m at the top o’ the world. ’Tis better than drinking 
milk and watter. Yew can start from Downacot, where 
everything grows big and strong ’cause the wind don’t 
get down under, and yew can come up the lane, which 
be vull o’ flowers ’cause it be a lew place, and yew can 
come out by the sycamores and round by the blacky- 
stones same as we’m doing — yew finds the wind then, and 
there be nought but vuzz and ferns and brimmles, wi’ a 
stalk or two o’ dead-man ’s-fingers between the stones. 
Yew’m on Dartmoor, and the higher yew go the more 
wind there be. There bain’t no flowers ’cept heather, 
and as yew goes up Cawsand there be more wind and 
more heather, bigger and bigger as yew gets near the 
top, stronger the one and stronger t’other, till yew feels 
the skin o’ your face drawn tight, and the roots o’ your 
hair start pinching, and when yew opens your mouth yew 
can taste the wind, bite ’en and swallow ’en ; and that 
don’t be sour in your mouth nor bitter in your stomach 
neither. Then yew can sot down on the old tomb what 
be up over there, and tak’ a book o’ poetry out, and read 
’en, my de^r; read ’en till they’m lighting up over, and 
it be whist under, and your hands and face be wet and 
cold wi’ the cloudy trade brought wi’ the wind along. 
And then yew can get down and feel yew’m free.” 

Ada Mills looked down at her boots and tittered gently. 
Then she went into a scream of laughter in which she 
managed to include some very discordant sounds ; and at 
last cried without sense or sympathy, “ Aw, Mr. Break- 
back, whatever be yew a talking so vunny vor?” 


CHAPTER XI 

ABOUT ST. Michael’s white violets and green oaks 

Now that Winnie was stronger her walks were longer; 
across the moor on hot days ; along the lanes when it was 
windy; and in the worst weather through St. Michael’s 
wood between the boggy slopes and the river, beside 
the little oaks which never grew any bigger, and among 
the bracken which made her feel so small. She loved 
that walk. She delighted to trace the path of perambula- 
tion, to wander up and down beside the Blackavon, to climb 
from one rock to another in the bed of the river, and to 
sit upon an ivy-covered boulder on the height above the 
waterfall and look down upon the mass of white foam 
hurrying to the north as if fearful that the sea could not 
wait for its frothy contribution. She knew every pool 
and path, every little island above and below the Ford, 
and every bog and garden of king ferns. She photo- 
graphed them with her pretty blue eyes, and when she 
was half asleep her brain developed the pictures and 
hung them about the walls of her room ; but not quite as 
she had seen them, for there were creatures in the wood 
then whom St. Michael did not know ; they were in the 
developed pictures, and she could not blink them away, 
these creatures blown about her by hard weather. In 
these pictures Ernest Hawker would insist upon sitting 
above the waterfall, or trampling upon her prettiest bank 
of violets, and he was always smoking rank tobacco and 
talking slang, and calling her his “ little bit o’ cream,” 
or something equally indigestible. Then Winnie would 
shiver and murmur to herself, ” I wonder how he would 
look with his beard off,” which seemed a ridiculous thing 
to say, as Hawker did not possess a beard. 

157 


Heather 


158 

Winnie always looked pretty, which by itself was a 
small thing, for a pretty face can be bought in any tea- 
shop ; but Winnie’s tongue and hands were prettier than 
her face. It is manner that makes for beauty ; a trick 
of the tongue, a little gesture which nobody else makes, 
a certain movement in walking; these are destructive 
things. The clockwork doll can sit in a corner till she 
melts; the little woman with a few dainty tricks can 
conjure to her heart’s content and turn any man into a 
lover. Winnie practised all kinds of enchantments be- 
cause “ it wasn’t her fault.” She could hardly twist her 
hands together without squeezing somebody’s heart flat 
inside them. Even when she picked up her dress to walk 
she wasn’t like other girls, although the most subtle 
philosopher could not have explained just where the 
originality occurred. There was a suggestion of pathos 
in all her actions and a kind of helplessness in everything 
she said. Possibly the charm was there. 

The height of beauty is some sort of imperfection. 
Very likely Helen of Troy had a slight cast in one eye. 
The sky scarred with one small cloud is far more beauti- 
ful than an unbroken expanse of blue. Winnie had 
those dimples, which science would describe coldly as 
small natural depressions on the face, though Cupid, who 
never studied anatomy, would have called them in his 
boyish way, “jolly sharp arrows.” Dimples are flaws, 
and yet hearts fall merrily into them, and by the laws of 
gravity and attraction they cannot easily get out again. 
But Winnie’s most distracting flaw was her nose. It is 
the duty of every respectable human nose to be rounded 
at the tip, but this girl’s nose defied orthodoxy. Instead 
of flowing round smoothly at the end, as it ought to have 
done, describing a gentle curve, it broke off sheer in a 
tiny pink line less than a quarter of an inch long, but 
capable of causing a load of mischief just because it was 
not like other noses. It looked as if some malicious little 
demon had sawn the tip off. Such a slight flaw compels 
adoration. Men are surprised by it, then delight in it, 
and finally decide the world is a poor place unless they 
can obtain possession of the owner of it. A girl can 
win the man she wants by a mere squeal. But it must be 
an original squeal. 


White Violets and Green Oaks 159 

One or two of the Fates, less stony-hearted than the 
rest, must have wept a little when the model labelled some- 
what prematurely Winnie Shazell was turned out of that 
workshop where pretty girls are moulded, and the soul 
was all ready to be blown into her. They must have 
wondered what was the good of it. The chief sculptor 
— no bungling apprentice made Winnie — would have 
admitted he was striving after an original effect when 
he chipped that fragment off the end of her nose. It 
would make the men run after her, he said. And then 
the Fates, who were kindly disposed, pointed to a corner 
where a dirty little devil was busy with all kinds of vile 
instruments and chemicals, amid smoke and grime and 
pestiferous odours, turning out bacilli by the million, and 
hammering them into every atom of life that passed him 
on its way earthwards. What was the good of the pretty 
girl being sent out with a lot of that fiend’s damnable 
growths inside her? What was the use of men running 
after her if she was to be diseased? But the demon in 
the smoke chuckled at that, and said, “ The men are 
diseased too. I see to that. One disease runs after 
another disease to make more disease. And the good of 
it is they learn what it means to suffer. That’s what 
the Overseer says.” Then he seized with his pincers the 
germ of a tapeworm and hammered it into shape with 
great joy. A strange party of workers — the sculptor 
doing his best to produce loveliness, and the grimy fiend 
toiling for ever to destroy that loveliness ; and the old 
Fates uttering phrases meant to be consoling, such as, 
” Bear up, my pretty. It will soon be over;” and the 
Overseer going to and fro, wondering perhaps sometimes 
if it would not be better to close the works altogether. 

” Get up, Billy. It’s nearly stuffing-time,” said Bere- 
nice as she entered Winnie’s room fully dressed, her fine 
brown face glowing. She always looked in when the 
doctor had gone. ” How can you have that horrid slimy 
little toad on your bed? I wouldn’t.” She alluded to 
Tobias the fickle, who regarded that room as his own, but 
graciously permitted Winnie to share his bed. ” Now 
don’t look plaintive, you darling, for it’s a lovely day and 
your shadow is not growing less,” she said, bending over 
Winnie and kissing her in defiance of the law which in 


i6o Heather 

that establishment rightly ordained kissing to be an 
unfriendly act. 

“Don’t,” said Winnie. “You are much better than 
I am.” 

“ I’ll risk it. You are looking so nice,” said Berenice 
lightly. “ Everything all right? No letters or anything 
objectionable? There’s usually a moan in the morning.” 

“ Only the passages — I had them again last night. 
Horrible dark passages,” shivered Winnie. 

“ What’s the child driving at now?” said Berenice, 
with the condescension of a couple of years’ seniority. 

“ Haven’t I told you? I seem to be in a great build- 
ing filled with windows that don’t give any light and 
passages that lead nowhere. It’s a dreadful dream, 
though it sounds nothing. There seem to be hundreds 
of passages all alike, and they all have the same choking 
musty kind of smell. I have to escape because I can’t 
breathe, so I hurry down a passage and it leads into 
another, and I run down that and it comes out into another 
passage, and the walls are wet and covered with toad- 
stools.” 

“ How can you see if there’s no light?” 

“ This is a dream,” said Winnie reprovingly. 

“All right. Dimples. Don’t open your mouth so and 
show your tiny tongue, or I shall kiss you again.” 

“ At last I get into a passage where I can feel the wind, 
but it is a horrible salt wind which makes me feel sick,” 
Winnie went on. ‘ ‘ At the end of that passage is the 
sea, and I scream in my sleep because I have such a 
horror of the sea. So I turn back and hurry up and 
down more passages, hundreds of them, and all leading 
into more passages, choking and coughing all the time, 
until I feel the wind again, a bitter wind, and I see a 
dreadful white glare. Then I scream again, for that 
passage leads out into snow, which is another thing I 
have a horror of, because the sight of it always makes me 
ill. So I go on running again, until at last I climb up 
the wall like a fly to break one of the windows and 
get some air; and just as I reach the window down I 
fall and smash all to pieces, and that’s the end of 
dream, me, and everything,” she concluded with a small 
laugh. 


White Violets and Green Oaks i6i 


“ I never get to the bottom in a falling dream,” said 
Berenice. ” Do you often get these horrors?” 

” Only once before here, on my second night. I 
coughed all through the first and never went to sleep. 
But I often have passages in the — at home I mean.” 

Winnie nearly said something about slums which would 
have been dreadful. Only Halfacre knew the truth, as 
he knew everything about her by then. He had taken her 
entirely under his charge and issued his orders when they 
were alone as if he had been a master and she his servant. 

‘‘ I must get up,” Winnie went on quickly. ” I’ve 
been thumped this morning, and doctor says the bellows 
are blowing away nicely. I suppose he wouldn’t say 
anything else, though. Still, I’m going to get well,” she 
went on. ” I lie here when I can’t sleep, and nibble away 
at bread and butter, and keep on saying, ‘ I will get 
well.’ I am fighting very hard, Berenice.” 

” Of course you’ll get well, silly Billy. That’s what 
we are here for,” said the other girl playfully. ” Tobias, 
don’t make such a beastly noise.” 

” Oh, dear doggie, don’t scold him,” said Winnie. ” I 
thought at first he was dreaming of bunnies, but the 
noise is in the next room, where Gumm lives. It sounds 
as if he had got a tummy-ache,” she said naughtily. 

” Why, he’s crying,” said Berenice, listening beside 
the wall. ” I never heard of such a thing — a man 
crying. ” 

” Perhaps doctor has frightened him. The noise began 
when he was in there.” 

Then the next door opened, and a moment later the 
big unwieldy Gumm staggered past, stumbling blindly, 
blowing his nose, wiping his eyes, and exhibiting every 
symptom of an unusually severe cold. 

” Poor thing, he’s in trouble,” said Winnie, putting her 
aggravating head on one side. ” Go and say something 
nice to him, please, Berenice.” 

” Little Sill can attend to the few kind words. They 
are not much in my line,” said the brown girl rather 
contemptuously. ” Up you get, Bill. What’s your 
morning walk?” 

“The wood,” said Winnie joyously. ‘‘I may sit on 
my own bank of white violets for an hour,” 
n 


Heather 


162 

“The right place for you, sweet thing,” cried Bere- 
nice. Then she gathered up protesting Tobias, saying, 
“You shall come and play ball with me, whether you like it 
or not,” and ran out and down into the garden, murmur- 
ing to herself as she went into the sunshine, “ How I 
wish I were a man, so that I could love her properly.” 

The others appeared, waiting the call to breakfast and 
trying not to notice Gumm, who however had no idea of 
being disregarded, and soon came blubbering towards 
them with a crumpled letter in one hand and a long hand- 
kerchief in the other. Ihere was a close connection 
between the two, as a glance at the letter was always 
followed by an application of the handkerchief. Behind 
him walked Mudd as chief mourner, trying to express 
sorrow and sympathy, but only grinning nervously and 
talking nonsense. 

“ Oh, Mr. Gumm, I do hope there’s nothing the matter,” 
cried Miss Budge foolishly, while Halfacre muttered 
something about a shameless loss of self-control, and the 
publican tried to suggest sarcastically that his friend’s 
only object was to give them a little innocent amusement. 

“My baby,” howled Gumm, with a fresh splash of 
grief. ‘ ‘ My poor little baby. ’ ’ 

“Is it ill?’’ asked Miss Budge. 

The man in trouble shook his head and mopped again, 
while Mudd patted him on the shoulder and said, “ Bear 
up) Jiui. You’ll soon be dead,” in his most sympathetic 
manner. 

Read it, parson,” sobbed Gumm, pushing the moist 
letter into Sill’s hand. “ My poor little baby. We did 
want him so bad. ” 

The curate began to intone the letter in a soft and 
holy key. It was from Mrs. Gumm, telling a common 
story. Baby had got hold of a lighted candle, and the 
candle had fallen on baby’s flannelette nightdress, and 
baby s entry into Paradise had followed very soon after- 
wards ; and the little cot was empty for evermore. The 
curate returned the letter, and reminded the bereaved 
father that it was well with his child. 

” It would have been better for the poor baby if he 
hadn t been burnt,” sobbed Gumm. “ We didn’t have 
a baby for a long time. Then it came, and now it’s gone, ” 


White Violets and Green Oaks 163 

“ Flannelette ought never to be used. My missis 
always puts ours in proper flannel,” said the publican in 
a superior way. 

” What’s the good of talking like that, you silly fat- 
head? My poor baby is dead, and all the flannel in the 
world won’t bring him back. Jolly little kid he was,” 
sniffed the unhappy father. “ Used to sit up and say 
‘ Dad ’ as natural as life.” 

” You will go to him,” began Sill, feeling that some- 
thing appropriate was required of him. 

” I don’t want to go to him,” howled Gumm. 

The call came to breakfast and the patients went in, 
with the exception of Gumm, who remained in the garden 
with his back to the house and his face towards the 
rhododendrons, informing the flowers and bees that his 
poor baby was dead and there was very little likelihood 
of another coming. He was grotesque in his grief, and 
his idea of endurance was to kick and make a noise, 
as he couldn’t rob himself of sensibility. Had he been 
at home he would have wept over the dead child and then 
gone out to drink himself stupid. In that place he could 
not drink, so he had to howl instead. Berenice passed 
him, after a game with the dog outside, with a swift 
and careless, ” So sorry, Mr. Gumm. Cheer up,” and 
went in to breakfast, saying to herself, “ I hope he won’t 
come in to make us wet.” After all nothing ripe or beau- 
tiful had been taken away by that lighted candle; only a 
life which really had not commenced and was capable 
of' nothing but a little ape-like mimicry ; nothing perfect 
and necessary like Winnie. 

This young lady had not spoken to George the work- 
man since that day she had watched him painting by the 
Ford ; and she had not been allowed to speak then. She 
had seen him several times, crossing the moor with the 
tools of his craft, but he had always hurried off as if 
she had been poisonous. Winnie quite understood why 
he avoided her. For one thing she was stupid and he 
was marvellously clever; she was by force of circum- 
stances a common person, while he was famous — of course 
he was famous with that head. No wonder he ran away 
from a poor little maid who had to stand near a barrel 
of cheap butter, crawling with equally inexpensive flies, 


Heather 


164 

and sell pennyworths of stamps. No doubt he had 
guessed all about it. That perfectly wonderful genius of 
his would have enabled him to see right into her mind. 
George had not the slightest idea of the high place among 
stars and saints that Winnie was innocently assigning to 
him ; just as she had no suspicion of those various sketches 
about the walls of the Wheal House, every one of them 
depicting a face to which she had the best right and 
a nose which nobody else could hope to imitate. Of 
course Winnie had no right to take an interest in the 
craftsman, as somebody else was buying her by weekly 
instalments ; but it was quite a proper and artistic interest ; 
a fatal thing because it lasts longer than any other kind 
of interest. As for Berenice’s story of those confidential 
scraps of paper which had fluttered into Wheal Dream, 
Winnie had never even seen them. 

Halfway through St. Michael’s Wood the Blackavon 
tumbles down a steep place, breaking itself to pieces 
among rocks, and jumps into the Okement, singing a 
ballad of green trees as it goes. Brook and river are 
united in a park-like spot where moor and woodland 
meet in a sort of natural rock-garden. It is a place of 
green and white, of foliage and foam ; a waterfall is 
hurled over a huge slab of rock, boiling and sparkling, 
and spitting spray over the ferns, and when the wind 
blows upward it plays at making rainbows ; the Blackavon 
is foaming too, like an overdriven horse, after its breath- 
less hurry ; and the flowers in that spot are white. 
Opposite are two old mines, not new and gaunt, nor 
middle-aged and sad, but ancient and beautiful. The 
ruins of the miners’ cot form a rectangular heap of stones 
covered with moss and long tentacles of bramble. The 
mouths of the two water-logged shafts are draped with 
hanging ivy, veiled with fern-fronds, and fringed with 
grass of Parnassus. There is a dream-like air of mystery 
about the place. One listens for the sound of gnomes 
dancing in their hall, or for pan-pipes, and when the 
grass rustles — but it is only a viper, the place is not 
dreamland, but a corner of wind-swept earth, beautiful 
and deceitful like most pleasures, a place where men 
have grubbed copper to get gold; and on that tender 
grass is the silvery slime of the poisonous snake. There 


White Violets and Green Oaks 165 

are no pan-pipes, no merry music; the river hums on 
like a far-away organ, playing its everlasting and almost 
sacred plain-song, the notes indicated by the rocks in its 
bed, and time and accent by leaps and splashes ; not 
monotonous to those who are always listening, but ex- 
ceedingly haunting; and to live by it and to leave it is 
to long for it again. 

George sat above the waterfall on his camp-stool, 
dabbing at a canvas. He had finished one already, and 
as he painted he chaffed himself pleasantly. 

“Walk up and buy,” he was saying. “They are 
within reach of the poorest. Brunacombe’s little pictures, 
made in England, warranted not to fade, all false to 
nature, because the man who can pin a bit of nature to 
a canvas like a butterfly to a board hasn’t arrived. Buy, 
buy ! Only twopence-halfpenny each, and one thrown in 
for nothing if you say it’s a bad bargain. Talk about 
shirts and button-holes and sweated industries, while 
Brunacombe’s masterpieces go for the price of a bad 
egg. There’s a waterfall for you, Messrs. Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob. That ought to straighten the Mosaic 
nose and cause the strings of the Aaronic purse to loosen. 
Verily it is like unto a bundle of frozen cotton-w’ool. 
Paint a waterfall ! I might as well try to paint a clap 
of thunder. And what are those objects, Mr. Bruna- 
combe? Why, my dear Mr. Barabbas, they are lumps 
of rock, and are charged for in the bill at one farthing 
apiece, which, as you may remember, was formerly the 
market price of a brace of sparrows in your own dear 
fatherland. I thought they were intended to be bales of 
indiarubber, Mr. Brunacombe, and even you, debased and 
ignorant as you are, must admit that the resemblance 
is a striking one. But that only reveals the eminence 
of my art, Mr. Barabbas. To paint a rock, which is 
actually a rock, while it at the same time resembles a 
bale of indiarubber, is surely the highest point to which 
art can attain. I will if you like paint the words Dart- 
moor Rock in distinct white letters across each offending 
surface so that there can be positively no delusion. For 
that service I shall have to charge an extra halfpenny 
for expenditure of paint, wear and tear of brushes, loss 
of brain tissue, and mental and moral damage. It is not 


Heather 


1 66 

necessary for me to live, dear Mr. Barabbas, but I con- 
sider it advisable, as so many of the London roads are 
being repaired at present, and the traffic would be 
seriously disorganised by a Westminster Abbey funeral. 
I will not buy your dirty pictures, Mr. Brunacombe. Go 
out or I shall kick you. 

“ That’s enough green paint to satisfy even the lady 
who lets lodgings. I can’t give any more for the money. 
Now a smudge for that fern. The quickness of the hand 
deceives the eye. There you are ! It looks rather like 
a cauliflower, but no matter. This is only art, and any- 
thing is good enough to make a bit of a splash upon a 
wall-paper of red-hot roses. Come along, canvas number 
three. Come and have a nice waterfall painted on you, 
and then you shall go up to London and be described 
as a handsome work of art by the well-known painter 
George Brunacombe, and be given awa^ as a prize by 
a penny paper to some booby who gives the correct 
answer in a great gambling competition as to how many 
bank-notes would be required to reach from Epsom Hill 
to the Bankruptcy Court.” 

There was a gentle rustling in the bracken just behind 
the camp-stool, and George started, stopped his grotesque 
monologue — he always chatted to himself while he worked 
to keep his spirits up — and half turned. A good many 
vipers were about the wood, and more than once he had 
nearly set his foot upon one. 

” Begone, pestiferous reptile,” he called cheerfully; but 
the rustling in the bracken continued, and the artist, who 
was much too busy to swing round, began to assault his 
third canvas, saying — 

” Peradventure it is a pony from the hills, or a fat 
bull of Dartmoor, or a mountain sheep caught by its 
horns in the brambles. The art of giving expression to 
running water demands steady application, and the artist 
who hesitates loses his eightpence an hour. I would 
gladly pause awhile and play with this creature, weave 
a garland for its neck, crown myself with oak-leaves, and 
wander with it over hill and dale like a Botticelli picture. 
George Brunacombe and the bull — the very subject for 
a church window. According to legend St. Brunacombe 
was a contemporary of St. Michael, and they both lived 


White Violets and Green Oaks 167 

together in a little chapel at the top of Halstock 
wood ” 

“I am so sorry,” interrupted a nervous voice, “but 
I cannot help hearing every word you say.” 

For a moment George wondered if the waterfall had 
exploded. He seemed to be drenched with something 
cold. The little easel shot away like a rocket, number 
three canvas fell flat on its face, and the palette went 
clattering after. There was Winnie standing in the 
bracken covered with sunshine and confusion. It was 
not her fault if he was there. She had tried to get away 
directly she saw him, only the bracken and little dry 
twigs were so noisy. 

“ What a fool I am to be so nervous,” George muttered. 

Certainly it was a pretty picture; much better than 
stones and running water, much higher art, but some- 
thing beyond him, for that face was as baffling as the 
waterfall. It was beauty amid the bracken, with her feet 
in the flowers, and her head in one of those wonderful 
slanting sunbeams which came through a cleft in the 
rocks, pierced the foliage, and struck the ground just 
beyond her. She was blinking a little, but it suited her ; 
she was nervous, and that suited her; she moved slightly, 
put a hand to her hat, inclined her head — why everything 
that she did suited her. 

“ I was talking to myself,” said George, in the superior 
way which the state of his nerves demanded. “ It’s a 
trick of mine while working, and I didn’t think any one 
could hear me. I often hear ponies rustling about, but 
I don’t often see ” 

“ People,” she suggested timidly, when he hesitated, 
and he grunted an assent though he didn’t like the word. 
It was something like blasphemy to think of her as a 
person. The days of visions were not over; decidedly 
not over, when St. Michael permitted his youngest 
daughter to roam about the woods. 

“ I have got to sit here for an hour,” said Winnie 
piteously, as if it was a torment she could not face. 

George picked up his camp-stool at once, and asked 
where she would like to have it. 

“ Oh no, thank you very much, but I sit on the grass, 
on the bank over there. Of course you know it?” 


1 68 Heather 

“ There are some rotten trunks of trees. It is damp 
there,” he said. 

” Then you don’t know it — the bank of white violets, 
she said, smiling. 

He shook his beard, and when Winnie moved away he 
followed, because it seemed a natural thing to do. The 
black and rotten trunks were there, as he had said, but 
beyond, in a corner of garden made by the meeting of 
brook and river, was a bank he had never discovered — 
they had to climb over some ivy-scarred rocks to reach 
it — and that bank was soft with moss and dotted every- 
where with white violets. 

” You know more about this place than I do,” he 
exclaimed. 

” I was born on the moor, on the very roof of it,” she 
said timidly. ” I used to roam about as a child wherever 
I liked. I can always find out its secret corners.” 

” I was born on the edge of the moor. I left it, but 
1 had to come back.” 

” I had to come back too,” she said bravely. 

“Are you fond of Dartmoor?” 

“ I love it. It’s home,” she said, the question making 
her forget the man. “ I love it in all its moods, wet or 
fine, summer and winter. It is the only place where I 
can endure snow.” 

“ Can you bear the winds?” he asked. She looked so 
delicate, so frail. Those winds which would sometimes 
flay his face. 

“ They seem to make me live,” she said simply. 
“ While they nearly carry me off my feet they put life 
into me.” Then she added, “ I have never been well 
out of them.” 

George left her, having an idea he was going to lose 
the rest of the morning. Over the waterfall, where they 
were out of sight of each other, he stood and looked 
down. He was a fighter, but there was a force of Nature 
in that green and white wood, which was saying, in 
answer to his “ Let me go, for I must work,” “ I will 
not let you go,” the answer of the angel to the artist in 
St. Michael’s Wood. 

“This is a bright and a black day,” he muttered; and 
then sharply, “ Don’t be a fool, George. She gives away 


White Violets and Green Oaks 169 

your white heather. She reads your secrets and tells 
every one. Go on with your work.’* 

He set up his easel, took his palette and began to out- 
line the waterfall, which at once took upon itself the form 
of a girl lying upon a bank. It was certainly a very 
difficult nose to draw. Then something else came into 
the bracken, an invisible imp who kept on throwing things 
at him, sharp-pointed things that hurt horribly. It was 
curious he had not discovered that bank of white violets. 
What a poor creature she must think him for talking such 
nonsense when he was alone. Of course she would know 
that what he had written on those scraps of paper was 
only sentimental rubbish. It was hardly necessary to go 
and tell her that. But he would like to get an opinion 
upon his little pictures. Perhaps they were not so bad 
as they seemed, but he turned out so many that the 
process was mechanical. Decidedly he required criticism, 
and it seemed a pity to lose an opportunity. It wouldn’t 
be a waste of time to have a few of his faults pointed 
out. As he arrived at this decision the imp in the 
bracken threw something very sharp indeed; and George 
gathered up his morning’s work, tramped across to the 
bank, and frowned fiercely over the rocks as he said, 
“ I want you to look at this,” poking the little wet canvas 
at her as if it had been a knife; while poor Winnie 
trembled at the clever man’s hostility, and became fully 
assured that her presence there constituted a most intoler- 
able nuisance. 

” I must stop here. The doctor ordered me to — for 
an hour,” said she shyly. 

” What do you mean?” said George. 

” I am interrupting you, but I can’t help it. I was 
sent here,” she went on, painfully anxious to explain her 
position. “ Why, I think it is lovely,” she cried, very 
glad to change the subject. ” How beautifully you have 
painted the water !” 

” Only a smudge,” he said gruffly. “ I don’t want 
you to admire it. I want you to point out the faults.” 

“Are there any? I don’t think there can be,” she 
declared with a pretty puzzled look. ” Oh yes, it is 
perfect.” 

“Keep it if you like,” George blurted out “There’s 


lyo Heather 

that big picture of the Perambulators crossing Chapel 
Ford — the one you saw me working at that day when I 
• — when you came down with Miss Calladine. You 
seemed to be interested,” he rambled on, saying anything 
he could think of because she was looking so delighted 
with the gift and delightful in herself. ” It’s no good. 
I’ll finish it for you if you like. It’s not worth a frame, 
but you could tack it up to a wall. It’s big, and would 
cover a crack in the plaster.” 

” But you mustn’t,” she faltered, very pleased but 
distressed again, and looking up in that helpless and 
destructive way of hers. ” I ought not to take this, and 
as for the big picture — why, it must be worth hundreds 
of pounds,” she said, opening her mouth rather too much 
for the artist’s tranquillity. 

” Well, keep this one — if you will,” he said. 

” May I really? Thank you so very much. I don’t 
think you ought to give it me, but I — I want it,” she said 
charmingly. 

‘‘ Give it back,” he said brusquely. ” I’ll take it 
home and finish it properly. This was for the Jews, and 
I treat them as they treat me.” 

Winnie gave it back, somewhat unwillingly, as if she 
feared he might forget all about her, glancing timidly at 
the fine head and nervous face, and wishing she could 
brush his coat for him. It was so dreadfully dusty, 
and his hands were smeared as usual, and bits of dry 
fern were caught in his beard. An hour of her clinging 
attention would make him such a splendid man ; but then 
she remembered their respective positions — he the great 
clever artist with the world at his feet, and she a poor 
market slave, with a price being paid for her, and an 
engagement-ring which she wouldn’t wear until she was 
compelled to hidden away in her bedroom ; and she was 
only back in the wind for a little time, to be fattened as 
it were for sacrifice; and then she was to return to the 
place of smoke and fade away. 

“You are the first great man I have met,” she said, 
with a quick glance which told her that he preferred to 
keep his eyes upon the Blackavon. 

” Yes, I am pretty big,” he agreed, shaking his beard. 

” I mean famous,” she went on. ” It must feel strange 


White Violets and Green Oaks 17 1 

to know that every one talks about you. At least it 
would be strange to me, but then you are used to it.” 

” Great heavens, what is she thinking about?” was 
George’s mental comment. He must tell her the truth, 
get that wild idea out of her head, confess that he was 
a mere dabbler in all the arts and a success in none of 
them ; that he worked for a sorry pittance and the tribe 
of Judah; that the little picture he had given her was 
worth only a shilling or two — the price of a pound of tea ; 
that he was absolutely unknown to the world, and his 
income did not equal that of a blind beggar. And yet 
how was he to begin? It was so pleasant to receive the 
tribute of admiration from those lips. 

” I am only an artist. There are hundreds of ’em,” he 
blurted out. 

” Only !” she said, laughing, feeling happy and at her 
ease. ” Think what that means to me who can’t do 
anything. But you are a poet too, and a lot of other 
things besides. Mr. Leigh says you are a genius, and 
of course he knows.” 

” Mr. Leigh says a good deal that he doesn’t mean,” 
was all George could say just then. He could open her 
eyes later on, but for that hour, if never again, he would 
breathe flattery. 

Winnie shook her head and decided to believe Mr. 
Leigh, but she liked George all the more for his modesty. 
She wanted to brush his coat more than ever. She 
found it so easy to talk, lying on the bank of violets, 
trifling with an acorn, and looking across at him. It 
was a new sensation for Winnie to find herself playing a 
leading part. With Halfacre she was frightened and 
silent, agreeing with all he said, not venturing to con- 
tradict. But with George she was comfortable; a little 
encouragement and she would almost have scolded him 
for going about in such disreputable garments. But 
George went on leaning against the rocks, looking sullen, 
which was his way of trying to conceal his feelings. He 
had spent most of his life suppressing emotion and he was 
doing it then. It would be terrible, he thought, if by any 
mischance he should do or say something to make her 
suspect that he loved her. He would rather dash his head 
against those rocks than make such a shameful admission. 


Heather 


172 

“ I shall always boast of having met you. And there 
will be the picture as a proof that I am telling the truth,” 
she said artlessly. 

“The picture is worth nothing,” he said moodily, but 
Winnie only shook her head. She wasn’t going to be- 
lieve such nonsense. It must be worth a great deal if 
he had painted it, for he was a genius, and when such 
a one scrabbles on a canvas he is almost as guilty as the 
rascal who engraves a flash bank-note. 

“I am afraid you are wasting the morning,” said 
Winnie, conscious that she was boring him ; and George 
started and admitted rudely that he was wasting it, and 
then concluded she desired to get rid of him. Still he 
didn’t go. It was warm and pleasant on that bank of 
violets, and he liked it better than the green shelf above 
the waterfall. He pulled out the rag that served him for 
handkerchief to wipe his hot hands, forgetting he had 
wrapped his luncheon inside it; and when a couple of 
hard-boiled eggs rolled upon the bank he flushed with 
shame for the second time that morning. 

“ Here they are,” said a pathetic voice. Winnie was 
as much concerned as if she had dropped the eggs her- 
self ; she stopped them on their downward course and 
held them out. It was such a small hand, and so thin. 
The eggs looked almost too heavy for it. 

“Thank you,” said George coldly; and then after a 
horrible pause gruesome pictures kept on rising before 
the artist’s eyes — that cursed imagination of his — broken 
columns, snapped chains, and artificial flowers ; the stifling 
interior of a church filled apparently with a heap of some- 
thing purple — that for her; a dark place hanging with 
cobwebs, full of creeping movements, a sort of haunted 
Wheal Dream, a kind of prison; and then a room filled 
with men who were not men, but one a steam-engine, 
another a tree in motion, and another God Almighty — 
that for himself. Endurance finds out the weak spots 
as well as the strong : the wind strikes every part alike ; 
and at the point of least resistance it gets in. 

“ I’ll go on with my painting,” he said. 

“ Please do,” said Winnie. 

George went back feeling dazed and half-sick. He 
knew he should never eat those eggs. His hands were 


White Violets and Green Oaks 173 

trembling, and he could not have drawn a line to save 
his life. She thought he was a rich and famous man ; 
perhaps she thought he was strong physically; and he 
had stood before her a big lie in man’s clothing. He was 
really weak in body as she was, and they both suffered 
in different degrees from the same cause — the inward 
growth of the lowest form of plant life; and the only 
thing which could destroy those weeds was the wind. 
He and she were children of that wind and the moor; 
he had gone away and she had been taken away. And 
the valley of smoke had poisoned them both. He had 
come back like a prodigal unworthy of those harsh and 
kindly parents, and she had come back too. He would 
never go away again, and she must not ; though doubtless 
a happy home and every comfort awaited her in the valley 
of smoke. Why couldn’t they stay there together? They 
were brother and sister; they called the wind father and 
the moor mother — but that was imagination again. He 
was a poor devil; she was a girl accustomed to every 
luxury. He had nothing but Wheal Dream and a life 
of dreams, while she had everything; and everything in 
life seemed to mean a few bagfuls of coloured dirt manu- 
factured into thin round baubles; just as a string of 
coloured beads means everything to the year-old child. It 
seemed that men must buy happiness, health, place in the 
world, their very morals and prospect for eternity with 
a child’s playthings; and the toy cupboard in the nursery 
of Wheal Dream was empty. That being so George could 
only scowl upon Winnie and hurry away from her; and 
make all the splendidly naked and straightforward things 
of the moorland wood laugh in irony at the sorrowful 
spectacle of lovers coldly and proudly discussing the pro- 
spect of a change in the weather. The oak-leaves mingled 
with the bracken. Sometimes it looked as if the bracken 
was bringing forth acorns and as if the oak-branches were 
producing fern-fronds, so intermingled were they without 
shame. The Blackavon poured into the Okement. No- 
body could say where the body of the one joined the body 
of the other, so perfect was the passionate union, all song 
murmur and foam; and there also were the intelligent 
children of Nature who were so afraid of putting off the 
rags of self-pride and becoming naked to one another. 


Heather 


174 

The river and the oaks didn’t know they were naked; 
they had pride perhaps in their pretty bodies. Men and 
women are ashamed of any sort of nakedness, frightened 
to think of it, and when they are together dare not remove 
a single rag. It is not until they become like rivers meet- 
ing, not sluggishly, but with song murmur and foam that 
they are natural at last. 

“ Have you ever seen the oak-tree in the bracken?” 
asked a voice, the same one, only more tremulous ; and 
the speaker had changed too, had grown more charming 
and more necessary. Winnie was restless. Instead of 
being good and sitting still on her bank of white violets 
she was roaming about as if she had lost something, her 
face quite pink, her hair a mist of tendrils. 

” I can show it you,” she went on confidently. Winnie 
had been growing during the last few minutes. She 
had dared to come and speak to George without waiting 
for orders. She had never been so impertinent before, 
and she felt as happy as if she had broken all the Com- 
mandments one after the other. 

George turned but kept his distance. There is a cer- 
tain point where attraction becomes irresistible, and the 
needle after a preliminary wriggle leaps wildly at the 
magnet. What in the needle is a servile obedience to a 
law is in the lover a loss of self-control; a man knows 
how to break the law, the needle does not, and may 
perhaps be accounted the most natural of the two. 
George remained outside the circle, though a part of his 
being, which preferred to obey the law of nature rather than 
his foolishness, was inside condemned to play satellite to 
the sun of Winnie’s system. He replied in a commonplace 
voice that he had no idea what she was talking about. 

“I’ll show you if I may.” She was delighted at his 
ignorance. ” You are not — not — I mean you really never 
have seen it?” 

” I don’t understand you,” he said blankly; though it 
was unlikely he could understand anything while she 
was playing about there. 

“Why, the little oak-tree in the stem of the bracken. 
And you are so very clever. But nobody knows of it! 
vShall I show it you?” 

“ Yes, do,” he said, getting eager; then pinched him- 


White Violets and Green Oaks 175 

self and muttered, “ George, remember the Wheal 
House.” It was very bare and unfurnished; only a 
workroom and kitchen and shabby bedroom. 

” The edge of split bracken cuts like a razor,” he cried. 
She was pulling at a big stem like a palm branch. If he 
saw her blood it would be all over. 

” I know it cuts, but I haven’t got a knife,” she said 
helplessly. ‘‘ I will show it you though;” and she pulled 
again, the sort of pull that might have broken a jerry- 
built spider’s web, then put her hand to the front of her 
hat because the sun crossed her eyes. It was one of the 
most destructive of her movements, and though it had no 
effect upon the bracken it uprooted George and brought 
him near with a palette-knife. 

“ Get up the root,” she said. They dropped their 
hostile manner and became quite neighbourly over this new 
interest. 

” Isn’t it funny how the colour changes? The root 
is as black as ebony, and the stalk just above the ground 
is like mahogany; and then the brown gets fainter as 
it goes up the stem and at last becomes green, and the 
green fades away to nothing — almost white at the top, 
grey-headed like an old man.” 

” Where is the oak-tree?” 

” That’s inside. A very tiny tree, but quite perfect. 
It runs up the stem, getting fainter like the colour, until 
it disappears. Will you make a slanty cut? Not the 
root — there, just where my finger is, in the mahogany 
part.” 

” Where?” said George in a dazed fashion. He wanted 
to look again at that finger, and the sweet ridiculous 
insignificance of it. Somehow he did not see much of 
the stem of bracken because there was a tiny scratch upon 
her wrist, and it would keep on coming before his eyes, 
and he wanted to do something to it though he hardly 
knew what. 

” Just here. Look, I’ll make a mark with my nail. 
Anywhere will do, but the tree ought to be very clear here. 
Well, if you don’t like to cut it, let me.” 

“ I’ll do it. I was — was thinking,” George blurted out. 
Then he made a slash, and as the black part of the stem 
dropped Winnie gave a small cry of pleasure. 


Heather 


176 

“ Couldn’t be better. See, it’s a lovely little tree, root, 
stem and branches. And I made the discovery when I 
was only so high.” 

One glance at this small natural wonder was enough for 
George, as the scratched wrist became visible and he would 
rather have fallen down and worshipped that. 

” How did you manage it?” he asked absently, 

“ It was just by chance. I cut a stem through one 
day and found it out.” 

” I mean your wrist — that mark.” 

” Oh, a bramble, just after I crossed the Ford. I was 
swinging my arm. You will remember my picture?” 

” I will finish it as well as I can, and send it you.” 

” I have shown you two things, my bank of white 
violets and the oak-tree in the bracken.” 

She had shown him much more; and yet George per- 
ceived nothing, except that pink scratch on a snow-white 
wrist. 

‘‘ May I paint you?” he asked suddenly. 

“ Would you like to? Down here, on the bank of 
violets? I will ask doctor.” 

Then she said good-bye and went, breathing rather 
quickly at her own forwardness, and walking too fast; 
while George returned to the waterfall and tried to stand 
up Straight. 


CHAPTER XII 


ABOUT THE GREAT DOWNACOMBE REBELLION 

“Jimmy,” called Uncle Gifford, standing at the foot of 
the stairs. “The tea be soaked.” 

This was the usual morning call, as in moorland homes 
it is not polite to announce that a meal is ready. Uncle 
might have said, “ Breakfast be upon the table,” or he 
could have asked Jimmy if he was ready for it, but it 
would have been something like a want of manners to say 
in so many words that the meal was ready for him. 

“ Jimmy,” called Uncle again, “ tear up the bed avore 
yew comes down.” It would save him one journey up 
those steep stairs, and his right leg was getting very stiff. 
Uncle kept the beds clean, though it was hard work to 
evict the insects which were fond of emigrating from the 
overcrowded population next door. Ursula’s home was 
filthy, while Uncle Gifford’s cottage was clean; and she 
was a strong young woman, while he was a weak old 
man. It was merely the difference between resistance and 
submission. A rebellious mind makes a plague-stricken 
home. 

“ Aw, Jimmy, du’ye come. I ha’ to go up to garden 
and lift taties,” called Uncle fretfully. 

“ I be agwaine to bide abed,” came the answer at last. 
“ Seems like as if ’twould rain and little Dora be peevish. 
I’ll ha’ a cup o’ tay and a gurt slice o’ bread and cream.” 

Jimmy believed in plenty of nourishing food, as he had 
a baby to nurse. He was growing more like a woman 
every day, allowing muscle to waste and getting effeminate 
in manner. He often worried over the baby, declaring 
it was not teething properly, and he hoped he should never 
have to bring up another, as children were a nuisance; 
he was allowing his hair to grow and his flesh was getting 

177 


12 


ij8 Heather 

flabby; he was becoming so weak that he said it made 
his arms and legs ache to take the baby out for an airing. 
When Uncle laboured up the stairs with the cup of tea, 
Jimmy explained that he had been kept awake half the 
night and it was necessary for his health to obtain more 
sleep; and when the old man laboured up the second 
time with the slice of bread and cream, for he was forced 
to use his right hand to drag himself along, Jimmy re- 
marked that it would soon be necessary to get a maiden 
to nurse the infant, as the task was proving too much for 
his strength. Uncle made no reply, but lowered his body 
painfully into the living-room and stimulated his soul with 
a prayer. ^ 

The gist of Uncle’s prayer was that Jimmy and his 
baby were not what they ought to have been, and he 
ventured to lodge a respectful complaint against the con- 
tinued existence of so much selfishness. “I be a poor 
man. Lord,” he explained. “ I ha’ saved, and I ha’ given 
to chapel, and I owes nought. When I wur biding alone 
I had the best on’t though I didn’t knaw, and I asked 
yew to send I some one; and now I ha’ got Jimmy I ha’ 
the worst on’t, and I don’t want ’en. Lord, and so I tull 
ye, and I asks yew to tak’ ’en away. If I ha’ Jimmy and 
he wun’t work I can’t give nought to chapel. I du hope 
yew can understand what I be telling. I can’t give 
nought to chapel, which be giving to yew. Lord, and it 
don’t seem right to give Jimmy your money, and I asks 
yew to see kindly what can best be done wi’t. ” 

Uncle always prayed in a colloquial fashion without any 
straining after archaic forms of speech. He did not ven- 
ture to suggest that one bad mistake had already been 
committed. He had asked for a companion and Jimmy 
had been sent ; he could not help thinking that the task of 
selection had been grievously mismanaged. And now he 
asked that Jimmy might be taken away — it was a money- 
box kind of prayer — and his former solitude restored to 
him. Poor old Uncle had yet to learn that men must 
manage their affairs by their own unaided efforts. 

He sat to his breakfast and thought of other days. A 
quaint object hanging from one of the roof-beams, a white 
bunch of withered wheat-ears fastened round a notched 
stick, made him cast his mind back. No man would wish 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 179 

to pass through his life again, and when he looks back he 
is amazed to find how few are the days that have made 
a mark. Most of Uncle’s white days had been Sundays; 
chapel-meetings and sly courtships in his youth, not much 
religion then, but a few hot kisses and one kiss in par- 
ticular — these made the deepest mark, which seemed to 
show that passion is the stigma which brands the beast 
right through. Then there was the day of his conversion, 
when a sermon had convicted him of living in sin and a 
burst of somewhat illiterate eloquence had “brought him 
home.” Uncle remembered that day well enough, but 
it was not so clear as that one kiss in particular, although 
the conversion had led up to a great deal and the kiss to 
nothing. There was also a day of harvest when he had 
brought the “ neck,’’ which was that bunch of wheat-ears 
hanging to the roof-beam, safely into the house. That 
was one of the best days of all. He had farmed the two 
fields above his cottage, and that year had them under 
wheat, which in those days could be sold at a profit. 
Superstition and old customs occupied the minds of every 
commoner, adding beauty and happiness to their exist- 
ence if they also darkened it a little; and Uncle could 
remember how excited they all were when only a few 
stalks of wheat remained to be cut. Evil spirits were 
abroad, and these had to be propitiated, and it was neces- 
sary to secure those last ears and carry them to the house 
unspoilt, so that the good spirit of the harvest should not 
die and the life of the corn be carried on to another year. 
It was John Petherick’s father, a far better man though 
weak in business, who rushed out shouting, “ I ha’ ’en. ’’ 
“What ha’ ye?’’ called another. “A neck! a neck!’’ 
Then there came the rush for the house, while the women, 
playing their part of evil spirits, tried to thwart them. 
Uncle himself smuggled the neck inside. Old Petherick 
ran to the door with a false one and drew the women 
after him with their crocks of cider soaking him from 
head to foot, while Uncle slipped inside with the true spirit 
of the harvest underneath his coat. 

“Aw, ’twas a happy day,’’ he muttered, still feeling 
the excitement of it. And there was the dry old neck 
like a dead man’s hand hanging from the roof, although 
times had changed and the very custom which had placed 


i8o 


Heather 


it there was dead, because men have grown too solemn 
and wise for harvest-games, and wheat no longer smells 
of guineas. It seemed to Uncle that those had been hap- 
pier days. Certainly there was more pleasure, and every 
man had a strong laugh, and when he danced at harvest- 
revel there was always a jingling in his pockets. 

The loose door was kicked open and John lurched in, 
growling and belching in his beastly way. Uncle’s 
thoughts already had been disturbed by noises which had 
not suggested family prayers next door. John looked 
brutal, a short black whip was underneath his arm, his 
hard hat was dented like a wayside kettle; his face, 
always an indescribable colour of deep brown, tanned 
skin, animal heat, and earth mingled, looked then almost 
black. He slipped upon the smooth stone floor, his nailed 
boots making angry scratches. His old trousers were stiff 
with cow-dung. His eyes were sunken like the unhealthy 
hollows in his cheeks. His hands were like the roots of 
trees. 

“ Where be your Jimmy?” he growled, dodging about 
like a wrestler. Speech was an effort to John, and when 
he said a word he tried to throw his body after it. He 
looked a distorted image of humanity, a man turned inside 
out with all the vice and viscera showing. He had been 
at the bottle already, and when a man starts the day’s 
work in that fashion he is past redemption. Both he and 
Uncle were ugly, but old Gifford’s face was only ape- 
like ugliness, John’s was foul. Stamp alcoholism upon 
brutality and the depth is reached. 

” Jimmy be abed. He’m a lazy boy,” said Uncle in a 
friendly way, with a fearful glance at that knotted whip. 

‘‘What’s he abed vor?” growled John, striking against 
the table, nearly overturning it, and leaving a brown mark 
upon Uncle’s tablecloth. ‘‘ Be he a woman going to ha’ 
a baby? Get ’en out on’t, yew old vule. Pair o’ proper 
old tom-pollies yew be, wi’ yer beds and bastards and 
Bibles. ” 

“ I don’t understand the boy, Johnnie,” Uncle said. “ I 
don’t want to ha’ ’en here no longer, vor he wun’t du 
nought, but I can’t turn *en away. What be I to du wi’ 
’en, Johnnie? I be old and mazed got, and my bit o’ 
money wun’t last out. He minds the baby and makes the 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion i8i 


clothes, cuts ’em out he du and fits ’en, and he knits 
lace as if he wur a maid.” 

” What else?” John shouted. 

” Nought, Johnnie. Plays wi’ the baby’s toes, and 
tells o’ pigs and gurt market.” 

” Aw, yew old mazehead. He’m a proper dirty toad,’' 
hiccuped John, less violently, as he was feeling giddy. His 
head was wretchedly weak, for strong drink on an empty 
stomach is a poor sustenance. ” He goes after my woman 
when I be out. Yew knaws he du. I be agwaine to break 
’en vor it if I catches ’en. ” 

Uncle was not going to believe that story. Jimmy had 
certainly performed unmoral actions, but he was not alto- 
gether vile, and this was nothing but a trick on Ursula’s 
part to make fresh discord between the houses. ‘‘ It 
bain’t true, Johnnie,” he said. ” The boy be careless like, 
but he bain’t a bigamist.” Uncle did not know whether 
that was the right word, but he thought it would serve. 
” He just goes in to get milk vor the baby,” he said 
rather triumphantly, for he had scored oyer Jimmy there, 
having pointed out that if he didn’t go for the milk baby 
would have none. 

” Why du he go when I bain’t in?” 

” He’m afeard o’ yew, Johnnie. He’m as nervous as 
a maid.” 

” Be that as ’twull,” said John thickly, feeling that it 
might be better for him to get out into the air. ” If I 
finds ’en in there I’ll break ’en. Tell ’en that,” he 
shouted, pounding the fable with his fist, obliterating the 
whiteness of the cloth. ” Tell ’en that. I’ll put he and 
the bastard on the ground and tread on ’en. ” These 
words were shouted towards the door, and John flung 
himself after them with beetle-like blunderings, and stag- 
gered towards the linhay, a sort of patchwork of wood, 
corrugated iron, sacking, and furze-bushes, which he 
called his stable. John was low down in the scale, but 
he had his virtues; most of them as small as microbes, 
but one was prominent enough. He was a good work- 
man, no man in the district did a better day’s work, 
although he had no skill, and clumsiness increased his 
labours. He could build a hedge against Gregory Break- 
back and not be beaten; but nothing came of his work 


Heather 


182 

except increasing poverty, because he invested all his 
money in strong drink, which never pays a dividend and 
brings a man to the straw in time. Perhaps John deserved 
more pity than blame, for Ursula had what mind there 
was between them, and she had always been a tippler. It 
was the old story of the woman leading the man astray, 
and the man getting the blame because he was supposed 
to be the stronger. John and the pig's had plenty in com- 
mon ; they could grunt in agreement over almost every 
act; John and humanity had little. 

He was hauling turves that day to DownacOmbe Rectory. 
Two loads were as much as any man could manage, for 
he had to drive out to the marsh and load the cart from 
the stacks which a week’s sun had well dried. Peat was 
precious in poverty-stricken Downacombe, and its inhabit- 
ants, who had no forest rights, could only obtain it from 
the commoners by payment, which they were unable to 
afford, or by favour, which was a scarce commodity. Then 
a horse and cart were necessary to bring it home, and 
that rare event a holiday was the only day to be spared. 
There were thousands of tons of fuel only two miles from 
Downacombe, and yet it was costly, often unobtainable, 
just because the villagers were foreigners and had the 
geographical misfortune to be on the wrong side of the 
line. What was not wanted in Metheral was dear in 
Downacombe; and the freemen were not going to share 
the least of their privileges with bondmen. 

When John reached Downacombe on his first trip soon 
after midday the church bells were ringing. There was 
a knot of men about the door of the post-office talking in 
a low, grumbling way. John had enough sense to wonder 
if an election could be impending or whether a marriage 
was taking place. It could not be a suicide because of the 
bells, and a flag was flying over the tower, and John saw 
the postmaster point towards the flag with a blasphemous 
expression. This man was a Socialist and Atheist, and 
had other vices with the same grammatical termination; 
and one of the local preachers, who wholly differed from 
his unbelief but agreed entirely with his diluvial politics, 
not because he was wicked but because he was ignorant, 
had helped him to sow a lot of bad seed, some of which 
was bound to germinate and bring forth weeds. Only a 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 183 

spark was required to set the smother into a flame, and 
a certain gentleman named Richard Halfacre had supplied 
that spark. 

John jolted along to the rectory, dropping here and 
there a turve which some child pounced upon almost as 
soon as it reached the ground ; and when he got there a 
servant told him the news. The bells were ringing and 
the flag was flying because it was Mrs. Leigh’s birthday. 
Ringers had been hired by the master, and they were all 
foreigners, not a drop of local blood among them ; and the 
villagers, she declared, were about to give a practical 
form to their indignation. For one thing their beloved 
church and bells were being desecrated ; that seemed to 
be the special grievance of the postmaster; and for another 
thing the bells were being rung by foreigners, simply 
because locals had been offered the job and had declined. 
Of course John did not understand much of what he was 
told because he was dull-witted ; and for once he and a 
sane philosopher might have shaken hands, for it was 
very difficult to discover where the grievances of the 
villagers came in. 

When John had unloaded his peat he went back to the 
village. Custom ordained that he should patronise the 
inn, which was kept by an old couple who did not interest 
themselves much in outside affairs. The bar-room was 
simply a continuation of the kitchen. At one end was 
the fire-place, at the other a couple of benches and a table. 
Here Halfacre was sitting, eating mutton, and trying to 
inflame the sheep-like landlord. He had no business to be 
there, as the doctor had sent him across the moor for an 
all-day walk; but the chance to spend a day in Downa- 
combe was too good to be lost, and the risk of discovery 
was not great, as the laws which are in force at a school 
prevail also at a sanatorium, and no patient sneaks about 
the wrong-doing of another. 

“ This house belongs to the parson,” he was saying as 
John pushed the door open. ” You pay him rent, and if 
you didn’t he would turn you out. What good does he 
do you?” 

“ Wull, he lets us bide,” said the landlord, in a voice 
which expressed the wish that all men would do likewise. 

Look at the plaster coming down on your heads, and 


Heather 


184 

the thatch is sliding off the roof. There’s been nothing 
done for the last twenty years. Look at the cottages 
falling down everywhere, not fit for animals, mere holes 
of smoke. What is the parson doing for them?” 

John understood some of this, and it amused him so 
much that he began to bump his body against the wall 
and make strange noises. Halfacre glanced at him con- 
temptuously but without recognising the owner of Wheal 
Dream. 

” Yew and postmaster belongs to these here Soshul- 
lists, I reckon?” said the peaceable landlord. 

” I am proud to say we do,” Halfacre answered. “We 
want to help our fellow-creatures, and lift up those that 
are trodden underfoot, and make men and women out of 
them, and give them something they can call their own. 
That’s what we call Socialism.” 

” I reckoned ’twas wanting what yew ain’t got and 
being afraid to work vor ’en,” said the simple landlord. 

” Aw, aw, that be a gude ’un,” laughed John. 

“Who are you?” asked Halfacre sharply, objecting to 
be laughed at by an uncouth creature who appeared to 
be a particularly dirty specimen of the tramp class. 

“ I knaws yew,” laughed John. “ Yew’m one o’ the 
consumptuous ones.” 

“ He’m John Petherick to Wheal Dream,” explained 
the landlord. 

Halfacre had no friendly feeling for the commoners, 
whom he regarded as land-grabbers, people who enclosed 
open spaces of land Tor their own base purposes and 
deprived others of the lawful enjoyment of such land. 
He turned away from John to resume his attack upon the 
landlord, who was proving himself a blackleg by not join- 
ing in the outcry against the rector for having the bells 
rung with imported labour on the occasion of his wife’s 
birthday. Halfacre was no orator; he could write well, 
but his tongue was blundering. It was the postmaster 
who had stirred up the people, whilst Halfacre played the 
part of prompter, standing by the speaker’s side and sug- 
gesting such ideas as land and leisure for every one except 
those who were then enjoying them. 

“ I ain’t got nothing agin parson,” said the landlord, 
who had his licence to think of. “ He’m a gentleman. 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 185 

and ’tis natural he should want to live like one. The 
whole village ought to be pulled down and built up proper. 
Most o’ these old places ain’t worth spending money on. 
Patch ’em up in one place and they’ll bust out in another, 
and as vor the roofs, yew must thatch the whole or 
none. ’Tis no gude thatching a bit when the whole roof 
leaks. ” 

“ Your parson robs the place of five hundred pounds 
every year,” cried Halfacre, as fiercely as if he had just 
caught Leigh extracting that amount out of his own 
pocket. 

” Wull, sir, that be a lot o’ money, and I ain’t going 
to say whether he desarves it or whether he don’t,” was 
the cautious answer. ” S’pose he repaired one cottage a 
year there ’d be a proper old flummux, ’cause every one 
would want to know why he’d repaired that cottage and 
not theirs. I used to ask ’en to spend a bit on this old 
inn, but he said he couldn’t, so I reckoned ’twur best to 
let ’en ’lone. He said ’twasn’t worth it, and he’m right. 
The old house be as rotten as dung, and a door don’t 
hardly slam wi’out bringing a bit o’ the wall down. The 
only thing to du is to pull the place down and build ’en 
up again. I ain’t going to complain. Me and missis 
makes a living, and when volks might be worser off than 
’em be they’m vules to kill the fatted calf what lays the 
golden egg,” he said, as he moved off to refill John’s 
mug. “ Wull, sir, I bain’t agin ye neither,” he went on, 
bending over a big barrel and patting it affectionately. 
” Soshullism and revivals be gude vor my trade. Volks 
can’t talk wi’out coming together and getting thirsty, 
and the more ’em talks the more wetting ’em wants. 
I dra’s the beer and ses nought.” 

” You don’t see any injustice in these poor creatures 
sweating their lives away, without a day’s pleasure, living 
in dirty mud-holes, so that your lazy parson can spend his 
days in comfort?” cried Halfacre in a wild fashion. 

” I reckon ’tis no injustice to work vor my living and 
to pay my rent,” said the imperturbable landlord. 
“Times be cruel bad in the villages; they ses ’em wur 
worse years ago, but I knaw ’em warn’t, they ha’ never 
been worse than now. Volks reckon any change would 
mak’ ’em better off, but I ses it be more likely to mak’ 


1 86 Heather 

’em worser off. Parson don’t help us, but he don’t hinder 
us. S’pose the place wur sold and the cottages wur pulled 
down, and new houses built — where would us be then? 
Us wouldn’t be able to afford the rent, and us would have 
to clear out on’t. When things be bad, I ses let ’em 
’lone lest yew mak’ ’em worser.” 

Halfacre left his bench, cursing at so much ignorance. 
It was no use wasting words on this poor dolt, who was 
too much afraid of losing his licence to join in the fight 
against the oppressor. He paid for his food and said care- 
lessly, ” We are going to the rectory when the men come 
in from the fields. I suppose it’s no good asking you to 
join us?” 

” It bain’t, sir,” said the old fellow. Whatever his 
feelings may have been he was patriotic enough to resent 
this intrusion of a stranger into local affairs. “ And I’ll 
tull ye,” he went on, ” when it comes to marching yew 
Wun’t find many to follow. Talk be one thing and doing 
be another. What yew ses about a man who bain’t nigh 
be a different thing from what yew ses to his face.” 

Halfacre went out, while John made up his mind to go 
on drinking beer for a bit and then follow to see the fun. 
Anything in the form of rioting was a joy to his soul, 
although he was quite unable to comprehend what Social- 
ism meant or what it wanted ; and there again the sanest 
philosopher living could have shaken hands with him. 
As a commoner he had no need to meddle with strange 
doctrines of freedom ; but he was able to remember that 
his despised brother-in-law Bill Chown had, on those occa- 
sions when they were on fairly friendly terms, talked 
about such an incomprehensible matter as liberty for 
every one. 

“ Proper blackguard I calls he,” said the landlord, 
when the kitchen door had closed behind Halfacre. 

” Aw, be he?” said John, in his thick-headed way. 
” He’m one o’ the gentlemen up to the conversation 
home,” he added, with some respect. The sanatorium was 
known by the euphemism of Convalescent Home, and to 
be there argued the possession of money, and only gentle- 
men have money and can afford to be ill. 

“Yew don’t blind an old soldier,” said the landlord. 
“I’ve abin under plenty of officers in my time, and I 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 187 

knaws gentlemen, and if he’m one then I’m a general. I 
reckon he’m one o’ these fellers what goes about the 
country trying to set labourers agin their masters. What 
be this Soshullism they talks about? Every man share 
and share alike, they ses. Wull, me and my brother Tom 
started together, me wi’ nought, and he wi’ nought; and 
he ha’ got nought to-day, and I ha’ got a beer-house. 
Put my brother Tom in here, and let me go out wi’ 
nought, I’d get hold of another house and he’d lose this 
one. That be me, and that be my brother Tom. Start us 
off together as often as yew like, I’d go up and he’d go 
down, vor that be the way of us, and until God Almighty 
makes volk of different stuff that will be the way of every 
one. Give me and my brother Tom a five-pound note, 
and I’d put mine into the business and he’d put his into 
his stomach. ’Tis easy to start volk level, just as it be 
easy to start a pony race. But ’em bain’t level after they 
ha’ run a mile.” 

John flushed his throat again and brought forth sounds 
of wind, but nothing intelligible. He imagined that the 
landlord had been describing a pony race, where he and 
his brother Tom had each invested five pounds. John 
comprehended pony races and could talk about them ; but 
on such matters as religion and Socialism he was silent; 
or at least he could only say that he warn’t one, and he 
warn’t t’other, and he didn’t believe in naythur; which 
was a simple way of closing discussion without gaining 
a reputation for obtuseness. The man who never answers 
soon gets pointed out as a philosopher, while the one who 
is always trying to find out things is regarded as a fool 
because he advertises his ignorance. John was looked 
upon as rather a subtle fellow owing to his silent tongue 
and abnormal laugh ; and yet he was unable to read the 
little word ” Bar ” on the door of an inn, although custom 
had bred a knowledge of its meaning ; and he could not 
count higher than ten, the number of his fingers. Ten 
ponies came within the scope of his enumerative powers, 
but more than ten were a ” proper lot,” or a drift, of 
ponies. 

Leigh was in his garden smelling the roses which were 
past their prime, eating the honey of a calm evening. 
Every month of his life he devoted more time to those 


Heather 


1 88 

half-aimless wanderings; up one side, down another, under 
the pergola, through the glass-houses, round the lawn ; 
pausing to eradicate a weed, to tie up a flagging carna- 
tion, or snap off a seed-head. His garden had taken the 
place of his wife ; he was always with it, devoting himself 
to the roses like a lover. When it rained he longed for 
fine weather so that he could go out and walk between the 
perennials. After breakfast he hurried from the house to 
watch the annuals hurrying through their short lives ; and 
would start with amazement when he heard the bell ring 
for luncheon. His evenings were given to the roses, that 
was understood between him and them ; and he gave them 
some of the nights too, and of the moonlit nights more 
than a little. His study was littered with garden papers 
and the paraphernalia of that craft. He read little else, 
and rarely opened any book of the day or of the past. He 
was becoming a recluse, his mind was getting warped; 
always playing with the earth, some of it was forming 
on his mind. It was a battle between the roses and the 
manure with which he fed their roots. 

His study swarmed with postcards. They clung to the 
picture-frames like bees. When he looked up, every 
actress of fame or motoriety tempted him and every 
cathedral in Europe blessed him. The latest came from 
Monaco, where Mrs. Leigh was combining business with 
pleasure in a manner peculiar to that principality ; and the 
card hinted that a letter would follow in reference to the 
business side. Still she was having a good time and 
getting strong and well; and she was coming home soon, 
to stay for a long time, as her heart was really at Downa- 
combe though her body might be enjoying itself abroad. 
Women write these things with a heart-breaking facility. 
She was going on to Germany ; she had promised Some 
very nice people to visit the Black Forest with them, and 
the doctor had recommended it very highly, and she would 
send him lots of postcards, and not gamble more than was 
necessary, and then she would come home, for that was 
the best place after all, and would stay for at least three 
months. 

Francis Leigh, being alone among actresses and cathe- 
drals and the latest manual upon roses, wiped his eyes 
and was miserable; for promises and postcards are cold 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 189 

chamber-mates. It was not his wife’s fault; she had 
always declared that the close, moist atmosphere of 
Downacombe would be fatal to her; and the lack of social 
pleasures made her fret. If he could have taken her up 
on Dartmoor all might have been well, so far as her health 
was concerned, but the dulness would have been the 
same. 

To-morrow would be her /e^e-day, and he would have 
the flag flying on the tower and set the bells ringing. It 
would be a pleasure to him and a pretty compliment to 
her. He did not come to this decision until late at night. 
It was dark, and he left the garden early. For a time he 
was restless, then he settled down to plan a rock-garden 
which he proposed to make on a piece of waste land en- 
cumbered with brambles and bracken; but suddenly all 
interest in the work forsook him ; it became stale and un- 
profitable; he pushed it away, went to his arm-chair, 
turned the lamp down and listened. He wanted to hear 
footsteps. He heard moths beating against the window, 
and leaves rustling and singing the flowers to sleep. Then 
he shuddered and awoke. He was getting old. 

Such an obvious fact escapes notice until it comes in a 
storm and strikes like lightning. That shudder is the 
thunderclap which precedes the awakening, the bad dream 
just before dawn ; it shakes the mind open and light rushes 
in. A man will live alone year after year, a bachelor 
among his hobbies, a scholar in his study, or a school- 
master bound by academic routine. He is young, that is 
the only thing which matters; it was just the other day 
some one was laughing at him because of his youth and 
inexperience. True he has lately given up some form of 
sport, because it ceased to give him pleasure, and it made 
him so horribly tired and unfit for work the next day. It 
would soon be time to get settled, another year or two of 
that life and it would be his duty to marry. No hurry, as 
it was only a year or two ago that Harry married, and 
he was at school with Harry. There was a letter from 
him, and he said something about — what was it? Why, 
congratulate me on the birth of my first grandson; he 
meant son probably ; still Harry did marry at some ridicu- 
lously early age, nineteen, or it might have been twenty- 
nine; anyhow it was no good thinking about it. Work 


Heather 


190 

and hobbies assert themselves again and these thoughts 
are forgotten. But late some night that fit of restlessness 
comes, the hobbies become as dry as ashes, the work is a 
burden; and then there is the convulsive shudder, the 
mental thunder and lightning, and the awakening. The 
man is old, and for the first time knows it; he has let the 
good things of life go by and they won’t come back again ; 
he has thought and fooled the time away, and it is too late 
to change, settle down, and accept new conditions. He 
is past fifty, and a few more of those scampering years 
will make him that long-sounding and gruesome thing a 
sexagenarian. And it was only the other day — but such 
reasoning is useless. That girl he had been thinking 
about would laugh to his face, and call him a giddy old 
thing, if he proposed to her. She would say he was old 
enough to be her father — and he had never realised it 
until then. 

Possibly without the shuddering conviction of age Leigh 
would not have caused the bells to ring and the flag to 
fly. He did it for his own amusement; as no favourable 
omen was offered him he made one ; just as the boy who 
tosses a coin to decide whether he shall do a certain thing 
or not goes on tossing until the coin turns up the way 
he wants it. The bells suggested a festival, a holiday, a 
wedding ; they made a pleasant noise in the garden where 
the rector walked, bending rather more than he had done 
yesterday. There was a sacred touch in the secular 
business to his mind, because he loved his wife and love 
is a sacred thing. It was a kind of holy day, the festival 
of wife and roses, the feast of St. Margaret. It made 
a break in the dull monotony of days, it was an incident, 
which is pleasant, unlike an event, which is generally 
hateful. The life with the fewest events is the happiest 
life. So Leigh walked the day away as usual, and stood 
the alien ringers a good dinner and as much cider as their 
fleshly casks could contain ; so it went on towards evening, 
and he had merely crossed from one side of the garden 
to the other when the storm broke and modern opinion 
came to the rectory. The cook walked up the path and 
announced that some gentlemen wished to see the master. 

“ Show them into the hall. I will come presently,” he 
said. No doubt a marriage was impending, and they had 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 191 

come to get the banns published. The bridegroom requires 
plenty of support on such an occasion. It could be nothing 
else. He took another turn, noticed a few fresh buds, 
then entered the house by his study window. 

There was plenty of light in the hall though the sun 
had gone down, dragging a fine red glow after him ; but 
there were not plenty of people. The old landlord was 
right when he suggested that those who shouted the 
loudest would march the slowest. Several had advanced 
as far as the outer gate, and there the majority made the 
discovery that they were too dirty to enter the rectory and 
face a gentleman. Their early ancestors had been serfs, 
their grandfathers little better, and they themselves could 
not fight against the hereditary instinct which convinced 
them that, despite their revolutionary tongues, they were 
inferior to the oppressor. They were prepared to break 
the shrubs and a few windows, or even set fire to the 
stables, if they were sure the rector couldn’t see them; 
but if he had come out among them they would have 
touched their hats and declared it was a fine evening. 

In the hall was Halfacre ; he had decided to explain his 
absence by telling the doctor when he returned that he had 
lost his way ; and with him were the postmaster subdued 
and tongue-tied ; a small farmer from the next parish, who 
had nothing whatever to do with Downacombe, but had 
put in an appearance on account of his hatred for the 
Established Church, oblivious of the fact that most of the 
others professed to be there on account of their love for 
it, although none of them had passed its doors since their 
mothers had carried them to and from the font, which was 
near the door so that they needn’t be taken in far enough 
to be contaminated ; a loafer or two, who lived on their 
wits and by other folk’s lack of them ; a few genuine vil- 
lagers, who felt that Leigh could not harm them much; 
and among them was Bill Chown, patient Bill, with the 
clay of the mine thick upon his hands, as innocent of flam- 
boyant Socialism as an egg is of wool, but pitifully anxious 
to say or do anything which might improve his condition 
and prevent the hailstones from soaking his bed at nights. 
There were not more than a dozen in the hall. John 
Petherick was with those at the gate, quite drunk by this 
time, and fully persuaded that a pony race was about to 


192 Heather 

be held, and he was there with the other sportsmen waiting 
for admittance. 

“ You wish to see me,” Leigh remarked in a surprised 
voice, addressing Halfacre, whom he did not recognise, 
because he seemed to be more of his own class than the 
others ; who crowded together and wished there was^ a 
fire, except Bill Chown, who stood apart by himself with 
his hat between his hands. 

“ Your parishioners have held a meeting in the village, 
and have decided that your act of ringing the church bells 
and flying the flag to-day constitutes an insult to them, 
and a degradation of the sacred property which has been 
placed under your charge,” said Halfacre in his excited 
manner. 

Leigh started violently, and a look of bewilderment 
crossed his face; but it soon cleared, he remembered he 
was master, and he turned to the small farmer, who was 
making rude noises with his tongue and cheek, and said 
sternly, ‘‘Take off your hat.” 

‘‘ I ha’ got a cold in me head, parson,” the man began. 

‘‘ Take off your hat, or I will have you put outside. I 
have men in the kitchen,” said Leigh, making a step for- 
ward which caused some of the company to wish there was 
more space. There was such a big difference between 
standing in the rectory and making speeches outside the 
post-oflice. Some of them began to hope that Leigh would 
not be hard upon them. 

The small farmer removed his hat growling and grumb- 
ling, but taking precautions to make his remarks inaudible. 
Then Leigh turned to the postmaster and said, ‘‘I’m 
surprised to see you here, Colley. Have you anything to 
say?” 

The postmaster had destroyed almost every work of 
creation with his tongue during the day, but he had now 
become marvellously innocuous. He began to think of his 
occupation, which the rector might deprive him of if he 
liked to be vindictive. It was easy to declare that it was 
the duty of poor people, to rise and seize what Nature had 
intended should be theirs, that the land belonged to them, 
and they were a proper lot of silly fools not to take it — 
when he was talking to the people. It was none so easy 
to preach the same doctrine to the landowner. 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 193 

“ I am the spokesman, and I’ll talk to you as much as 
you like,” the wild Halfacre broke in, standing with his 
legs apart, and glancing about defiantly. 

Again the rector ignored him and repeated his question 
to the postmaster, who struggled a little, licked his lips, 
and said in a husky voice, ” Well, parson, it’s like this. 
There’s a lot of bad feeling in the village, and you know it, 
I reckon. It ain’t for me to say who has caused it ” — 
which was modest of the man — ” but it’s growing. Some 
of the men reckon they ought to be better off ” 

” And have houses to sleep in instead of dunghills,” 
interposed the violent Halfacre, disgusted at the other’s 
mildness. ‘‘ And decent food to eat instead of pig-wash, 
and clothes instead of rags, and land of their own, and 
liberty in place of your abominable tyranny.” 

The rest of the party shivered admiringly and wished 
they could do likewise. This was putting things properly, 
giving their own thoughts just the right amount of inflam- 
mation. The small farmer broke the silence by clapping 
his hard hands together like two bits of board, and then 
he looked about the hall with an air of proprietorship. 
When they came to divide up the property that house 
would suit him admirably. It did not occur to him that 
some one else might want it, and be prepared to fight him 
in brotherly love for the possession of it. 

” Go on with what you were saying, Colley,” said the 
rector, with perfect self-control. He was playing the 
correct game of freezing them into silence. Halfacre 
was already feeling himself beaten. He was prepared to 
argue for an hour, getting fiercer and hotter over every 
sentence; but it was impossible to make out a case when 
there was no opposition, neither was it easy to argue 
with a man who had a singularly calm face, who evidently 
knew nothing about out-of-door oratory, or the rule which 
ordains that shout must be answered with shout and 
gesture with gesture, and who looked straight through 
the speaker as if he had been a puff of wind. 

” Well, Colley?” said the rector to the stirrer-up of 
strife in Downacombe. 

” Well, parson,” laboured the postmaster, feeling vari- 
ous pushes in the back and an encouraging elbow in his 
ribs, “ the people don’t like you ringing the bells to-day.” 

13 


Heather 


194 

“ Oh, why not?” 

” Well, they ain’t got a holiday, and it seems to some 
of them as if you was — was ” 

” Grossly insulting them,” finished Halfacre. 

” You see they have got to work the same as usual 
though the bells were ringing,” went on the postmaster, 
as a sort of apology for his leader’s rude remark. It was 
a wonderfully different postmaster from the blood and 
thunder individual who had recently declared that, if the 
people would only follow him, he would put them in pos- 
session of the entire country. No lion had ever donned the 
sheep-skin more completely. 

‘‘ This deputation is hardly representative of the vil- 
lage,” said Leigh, in his wintry manner. ” One man is 
a complete stranger. At least three others do not live in 
my parish. You, Colley, have expressed your religious 
convictions, or the lack of them, in no uncertain language, 
again and again. You call yourself an Atheist, and 
thereby proclaim yourself to be morally insane. Agnostic- 
ism I can understand. If you would content yourself with 
saying that we know nothing of things behind Nature, 
that the First Cause is unknowable and unrevealed,” he 
went on, warming up and glad of the opportunity to get 
at the men who had never acknowledged him, ” then I can 
meet you. But if you say there is no God you are no 
man. ” 

The postmaster said nothing, but certain movements 
that he made seemed to relegate him temporarily to a 
place among the worms. 

‘‘ If you like to assemble a general meeting of the 
parishioners — ” Leigh began, when Halfacre broke in 
upon him hotly and heedlessly. 

‘ ‘ They are outside, waiting at the gate ; and they are 
going to smash your windows when it gets dark.” 

The postmaster opened his mouth hurriedly, to disclaim 
all connection with the speaker, although it was a course 
he had himself advocated ; but Leigh was not listening. 
He winced slightly and, making a sudden turn, went to the 
kitchen, where some of the alien bellringers were still 
assembled, and returned in a few moments; behind him 
in the shadow of the hall loomed the huge figure of 
Gregory Breakback, who had conducted a series of grand- 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 195 

sire triplets during the day, shouting “ Bob ” every other 
minute with a voice as big as the tenor bell itself, and he 
could have gone on ringing all night and stood up straight 
at the end of it. 

Gregory gave a stride, which brought him to the side 
of Halfacre, and said in a voice which made the house 
echo, “I be a big man, and yew’m a little ’un. Shall us 
walk, or shall I lift ye?” 

Halfacre decided he could not aid a good cause by 
resisting, and that it would be advisable to put aside 
revolutionary methods and go in peace that he might 
strike a better blow another day. The Downacombe 
rebellion looked like fizzling out. These country folk were 
poor weak fools, who burnt in private and paled in public; 
there was not a glimmer of the flaring torch about them ; 
unlike townsmen, who knew what they wanted and were 
able to express themselves. The glorious principle of no 
work and plenty of money, the Saturnian age towards 
which the red flag guides, was fully appreciated by the 
clay-vessels of Downacombe, only they were too cowardly 
and inarticulate to help themselves or even to follow a 
leader ; they would learn that discontent, added to re- 
bellion, plus acts of violence and petty larceny, must in 
the long run amount to liberty — or to more servitude of a 
penal kind as the case may be. Halfacre went out 
scowding. 

” Wull, sir,” said Gregory in his usual way, addressing 
nobody in particular, but always ready with some tradi- 
tion or anecdote, ” some volks go out after rabbuts and 
finds adders, and some goes out after women and catches 
men. It be the contrairy way o’ things. There wur two 
men flip-flapping Taw river, and another comes along and 
asks what they’m after. One answers ’en, ‘ I wants some 
trouts, ’cause I ha’ nought vor supper,’ and t’other he 
ses, ‘ I be just passing the time away.’ Wull, sir, the 
hungry feller caught nought, but t’other caught a bagvul. 
And I reckon that be the way o’ things.” So saying 
Gregory pulled an apple out of his pocket, took a mighty 
bite, and strode back through the hall grinding it up like 
a horse. 

The deputation, deprived of its brain power, huddled 
together like a patch of snow waiting for the sun to come 


Heather 


196 

and melt it. The trumpet was gone, and the other instru- 
ments seemed as vacant as the inside of a drum. There 
came a shuffling towards the door, which the small farmer 
tried to cover by muttering that he warn’t afeard o’ parsons 
and he hated ’em proper he did, and had hated ’em ever 
since he had been converted and brought home and 
received the grace of Christian charity under the ministry 
of his own nephew, who was a preacher on circuit and 
could always find a text in the Bible to damn any Govern- 
ment with. These remarks did not reach the rector’s ears, 
and were not intended to. The rebellion had actually 
touched melting-point when Bill Chown stepped out like 
a man, touched his grimy forehead — there was a fringe of 
granite-coloured hair above his forehead although Bill was 
barely forty — and asked respectfully if he might speak. 

“Certainly,” said the rector, remembering the man’s 
face well enough, but quite unable to recall his name. 

“ Us don’t want land, parson,” said Bill abruptly. 
“ Us wouldn’t knaw what to du wi’ land if ’twas given 
us, vor land can’t be worked wi’out money, and us ain’t 
got money. What us wants is rights. Us wants to share 
and share alike wi’ every one, wi’ rich man and wi’ poor 
man, them things what God Almighty meant wur to be 
shared. ” 

The real leader was speaking at last, and Leigh realised 
it. Halfacre of the flaming torch was a hypocrite, Colley 
of the red flag was a humbug ; both men were in comfort- 
able circumstances, but Bill Chown was genuine. He 
had nothing except his clay-covered hands and the sweat 
of his brow. Downacombe was oppressed and in misery ; 
the landlord was bleeding it dry of every comfort; living 
by the fastings of its villagers and the accumulated mites 
of its widows; the rents were built up with children’s 
boots and winter firing. Leigh did not know that, per- 
haps he did not want to know it — a gentleman must live 

and he had his roses and his wife to care for. 

“ So you are a Socialist too,” he said. 

“ I don’t knaw what yew means by Soshullist,” Bill 
replied. “ But if ’tis to want fair play I be one. Come 
and see my cottage, wull ye, parson? Bide there a night 
when there be a frisk of wind and snow, and if yew ses 
in the morning ’tis fit vor human volk, then I’ll knaw 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 197 

what be right vor the poor. Wull ye come, parson? Yew 
ain’t never been inside the cottage since yew come 'here. ” 
“ 1 will come some time,” said Leigh, still coldly. He 
had to show them he was master. 

” I’ll tull ye how ’tis,” Bill went on. ‘‘ There be dree 
rooms, one under and two up over. They’m bedrooms, but 
one be all gone into holes like, and us can’t put nought 
there, not faggot-wood, parson, vor ’twould get so wet 
us couldn’t burn it. Me and wife sleeps in t’other, but 
the roof be gone so bad that us gets no rest when it be 
starmy, and I craves rest, parson, vor I works. Us 
pushes the bed first one side, then t’other, but bain’t no 
gude, the roof be like any old sieve, and the walls be 
green got wi’ mildew. Be that right, sir, be that fair 
play vor Christian volk that pays rent to a Christian 
parson? I’ll tull ye a bit more. There be a kitchen fire 
down under where us bides. The smoke don’t go into 
the chimney. A bit may now and agin, but not much 
on’t. It comes out into the room. Us has the door o’ 
the house wide open, winter and summer, in frost and 
snow, wi’ the wind and rain blowing in, and then us often 
can’t hardly speak vor coughing. If us wur to shut the 
door vor an hour to get warm us would be choked to 
death. ” 

” I am afraid that is the case with all the cottages,” 
said Leigh regretfully. ” These big open fireplaces re- 
quire so much draught, and the old-fashioned chimneys 
seem quite incapable of carrying off the smoke.” 

” It’s the same at the post-office,” said Colley sulkily. 

” Mine used to smoke tu,” said the small farmer, “but 
he don’t now, vor I spent a bit o’ money on putting ’en 
right. Yours don’t smoke naythur I reckon, parson. A 
bit o’ money does a proper lot o’ gude.” 

“ Have you anything more to say?” asked Leigh, turn- 
ing again to Bill. “ You said something about rights. 
What do you mean?” 

“ I means, sir, the rights what poor volk ought to have. 

I means, sir, the rights such as Dartmoor volk have. If 
us wur all commoners us wouldn’t grumble, ’cause us 
would be free men and ha’ the rights o’ free men. And 
I ses there ought to be a law to mak’ us commoners. A 
bit o’ land to every man bain’t no use, but what us 


Heather 


198 

craves is a big lot o’ land, common to all, a bit o’ land wi’ 
woods, and stone, and turves, and rabbuts, wi’ plenty o’ 
grass and watter. Dartmoor volk pays no rent ’cept a 
shillun or two vor service. They gets their fuel and 
faggot-wood vor nought, and rabbuts, hares, fishes, and 
birds vor nought, and stone, gravel, and sand vor nought, 
and vuzz and vern vor nought, and pasturage and pan- 
nage vor nought ; and they can purty nigh live vor 
nought. They ha’ got a gude landlord, and as long as 
they gives him the service he lets ’em bide. A Prince 
be a better landlord than a parson, and I bain’t afeard to 
say so.” 

The others murmured in sympathy, and Leigh flushed a 
little as he said, ” The Prince has many interests. His 
position as regards Dartmoor is merely an official one.” 

” When Dartmoor volk wants to build, what du it cost 
’em?” said Bill. ‘‘There be all they want lying on the 
moor, ’cept wood. When there be nought in the house vor 
food they goes out wi’ a gun, and when there be nought 
on the hearth they lifts turves. They ha’ rights, and 1 
ses us should ha’ rights tu. I be useful wi’ my hands, 
and if I wur a commoner I could mak’ my old cottage as 
gude as new. Us ha’ got nought. If I shoots a rabbut 
I be a poacher. If I takes a stick from the bottoms I be 
a thief. If I cuts a bundle o’ vuzz for thatch, or a bit o’ 
fern vor the floor, I be robbing you somehow, and I mun 
pay vor’t. I works hard, parson, me and wife works till 
us be mazed, but us makes a cruel poor living. ’Tis more 
like dying,” he added, with a smile of grim humour. 

Bill had said all he could, the words which he had re- 
hearsed as he tramped to and from the mine, the sentences 
he had built up slowly and committed to memory day by 
day while scraping for his bread, and night by night while 
dodging the leakage from the roof. The postmaster, who 
was not accustomed to appear as junior counsel to such 
a common person as Bill Chown, tried to assert himself by 
saying submissively, ‘‘The place is all rot and mildew, 
and there’s not a weather-proof building in the village — 
not in the part you own.” 

‘‘This gurt big house be gude and sound,” said Bill 
defiantly. ‘‘ Yew looks after yourself, parson. Why don’t 
yew look after we?” 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 199 

Bill was getting bold and careless, and talking foolishly. 
Leigh became ruffled at once by anything approaching an 
attack; and this remark hardened his heart. He had 
almost made up his mind to try and meet the men. Now 
he decided he would beat them. There was indeed hardly 
any other course open to him, as rents and tithe had been 
insufficient to keep him out of debt; and he had a strong 
case after all. 

“ This time will have been well spent,” he said, “ if 
we can find a way out of our difficulties, settle our differ- 
ences, and agree to dwell in peace. I am afraid that men 
of a very undesirable type have found their way to 
Downacombe, as they have to other places, advocating 
open revolution against the law. These men can do you 
no good. I have told you before to-day how impossible it 
is for me to help you. Were I wealthy I would rebuild 
the entire village. Nothing would give me more pleasure. 
I will put my case before you plainly — let me see. What 
is your name?” 

“ Chown, sir. Bill Chown to Uppertown.” 

“ Ah yes, I remember now. That is a bad part,” said 
Leigh vaguely. “ Well, Chown, I will answer you, not as 
a clergyman, but as a business man. To repair your cot- 
tage and make it, as you say, habitable, I should have to 
spend at least a hundred pounds, and even that would 
mean only putting a patch on an old garment. You pay 
me eighteenpence a week rent, and I quite believe that 
you cannot pay more. If I were to spend that hundred 
pounds I should get no more from you than I am doing 
now, that is to say less than four pounds a year, and I 
should be a hundred pounds out of pocket. If I repaired 
ten cottages I should be a thousand pounds out of pocket. 
It would be no use increasing the rent, as none of you can 
afford to pay more, and without an increase, and a very 
large increase, I can do nothing to the cottages, for the 
simple reason that I haven’t got the money, and could 
not pay the interest if I borrowed it. Apart from that, it 
would be a waste of money to attempt repairing. The 
surveyor, in his last report of the property, suggests that 
restoration is inadvisable. He recommended that all the 
buildings should be pulled down and new ones erected. If 
the money was given me for that purpose you could not 


200 


Heather 


benefit unless your wages were more than double what 
they are now. Your state would indeed be worse than it 
is now, as you would have no homes at all. I am afraid, 
Chown, you must make the best of a bad bargain and 
hope for better times.” 

” Us be mazed wi’ waiting,” said Bill. ” The old cot- 
tages be tumbling down one after the other, and the young 
volk ha’ gone to London and foreign parts, ’cause ’em 
can’t find a roof to get in under, and the old volk ha’ to 
go on the rates when the roof falls in on ’em. There wur 
two thousand volk in the parish when I wur born, and now 
there bain’t half as many. There wun’t be any in another 
fifty years, vor every building will ha’ tumbled down ’cept 
the church and rectory, and the varms wun’t be worked 
’cause there wun’t be a place for a man to bide.” 

” Things will improve,” said Leigh cheerfully. ” Farm- 
ing is looking up.” 

“ Be it?” said the small farmer, who had been sitting 
in a corner playing with a large red handkerchief. ” I 
be main glad to hear that. Bailed if I knew it though.” 

” Not a bit of it, sir,” exclaimed the postmaster, with 
some of his customary vigour. ” If a farmer pulls through 
his year without drawing on his capital they say farming 
is looking up. Not a cottage has been built in the parish 
during the last hundred years, but scores have tumbled 
down, and their cob walls have been tilled into the fields 
for manure, and whole villages have been wiped out. The 
farmers would build fast enough if they could, but they 
haven’t got the money.” 

” They are exactly in my position,” said Leigh. “ They 
are unable to borrow the money for cottage building 
simply because they cannot afford to pay their labourers 
sufficiently high wages to get back an adequate rent.” 

‘‘ He said varming be looking up,” exclaimed the man 
of that persuasion. ” Now he ses varmers ha’ got no 
money. I don’t hardly knaw where I be.” 

” Well, I have shown you my position,” said Leigh 
indifferently. ” I can’t even place a new water-butt to 
a cottage without being out of pocket.” 

” If this is happy England I wish I was out of it,” 
growled the postmaster, who always took extreme views, 
and was a pessimist whichever way the wind blew. ” I’ve 


The Great Downacombe Rebellion 201 


got a job which nobody would want to fight me for, but 
ril stay with it till I lose it, as is likely enough,” he said, 
with a glance at Leigh. 

” The country be gude. There bain’t none better in 
the world,” said Bill. ” ’Tis the laws that be rotten and 
mildewy. Us craves liberty and us craves common 
rights,” he repeated doggedly. “If us had quarries 
where us could crack stone, and bogs where us could dig 
turves, and woods where us could tak’ faggots, if us wur 
like Dartmoor folk, I ses, then us could hold up our heads 
and reckon ourselves men. ’Tis a proper fine country, and 
I wun’t leave mun till I be druve out on’t. Us gets 
nought wi’out asking, and them that shouts most gets 
most, I reckon; but it bain’t no use shouting when there 
be none to hearken. I wdsh ye gude-night, sir. I ha’ 
the flasket to carry over to Metheral. ” 

” I will come and see the cottage, Chown,” said Leigh, 
as Bill turned to go. ” And if the smoke nuisance can 
be stopped I’ll see what I can do.” 

” Thankye, sir. Yew’m w'elcome,” said Bill. 

” Perhaps you’ll have a look at mine too, sir,” said the 
postmaster. 

” I’ll go round the village in a day or so,” Leigh 
promised. ” If you won’t throw things at me,” he added. 

” Promises be like cream,” Bill muttered into his hat. 
“The more yew spread ’em the thinner ’em gets.” 

So the great Downacombe rebellion came to a splutter- 
ing sort of end. The rector’s coolness had extinguished 
the torch ; his position was very nearly impregnable, as 
he had not only might on his side but right, as the world 
regards it. His parishioners were only beating the air 
by opposing him. They couldn’t raise themselves an inch 
by shouting. They were like captured fish flapping their 
way towards water which they would never reach. The 
whole matter resolved itself into a political struggle; and 
politics change the condition of a country slowly. In the 
battle between brain and muscle, in an age of cunning, 
brain wins ; for muscle is the foolish giant of fairy-stories, 
believing everything that it is told, and stabbing itself 
with the carving-knife that it may see the pease-pudding 
tumbling out of its stomach ; and brain is the tricky mis- 
chievous sprite, the Jack of the stories, dodging up and 


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down with sword and lantern, stabbing and burning 
heedless of consequences. 

The men at the gate went away towards the inn to talk 
of the great deeds which they had not accomplished, and 
of the yet greater acts they might have performed under 
more favourable circumstances. Bill discovered his 
brother-in-law lying upon the road, his head supported 
against the hedge, his old hat a few yards away. John 
was indulging in a little refreshing sleep, weary after 
much beer-drinking. Bill tried to rouse him, mindful 
that John could take the washing back to Metheral and 
save him the long tramp. He had only to put John and 
the washing in the cart, at a safe distance from each other, 
and the horse would do the rest; but, as the sleepy man 
only babbled and would not move. Bill was forced to adopt 
methods which were usually effective, and left bruises. 

“ Kick ’en hard,” said another man. 

“ I ha’ kicked ’en dree times,” Bill explained. 

” I’ll wake ’en,” the other promised; and he did; for 
his boot was heavier and his leg stronger. John awoke 
with howls, and at once demanded whether the gates were 
open. 

“I ha’ come to the pony race,” he said. 

” Get up, wull ye? ’Tis time to get home along,” said 
Bill. 

” I be bit by adders. I be bit here, and here — aw, 
and here tu,” howled John. 

” ’Twas only us waking ye. Come up, man. It be all 
over. ’ ’ 

” Over, be it? Wull, and I’ve abin waiting vor ’em 
to start. How many of ’em wur racing-? Who won it. 
Bill?” 

” I reckon ’twas the parson,” said Bill sadly. 


CHAPTER XIII 


ABOUT WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 

It was Monday morningf, the time of goingf back to 
work again, the dreariest part of the week; and it was 
weighing-day at the Convalescent Home, or Abode of 
Love, as Gumm called it. That gentleman had returned 
from burying his baby, and drawing its insurance money, 
and had become quite convalescent so far as that shock 
was concerned. It gave him an excuse for losing weight ; 
as a bereaved parent it was his duty to drop a pound or 
two, which he could afford, as his body was puffing out 
like a balloon. Weighing took place before breakfast, 
when the body was at its lightest. There were many tricks 
among unscrupulous patients to add a little fictitious value 
to their weight, such as swallowing a pint of water, or 
slipping stones into their pockets, tricks which did not 
help them, as the truth was bound to come out. 

The doctor appeared early, and there was a general 
scuffling into weighing-garments. He went at once to 
Halfacre’s room and examined him. The verdict was not 
satisfactory, although he did not tell him so ; neither was 
the weight. Halfacre had lost nearly a pound. They went 
back to the room after weighing, the young man appar- 
ently unconcerned, the doctor annoyed. He did not like 
Halfacre ; of all his queer patients he was the queerest ; 
a scholar of Balliol ; the credentials were good enough ; 
and yet the man had the boorish manners and cool 
insolence of the lower order of commoners. He might 
have Latin and Greek at his fingers’ ends, but he had no 
polite English. He might occupy the position to which 
he seemed to be entitled by his more or less brilliant 
career; and yet the doctor could not rid himself of the 
memory that his most difficult patients were those of the 

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204 

lowest class. Halfacre had rebelled against sleeping in 
the open air ; he said it was not a civilised habit, and had 
demanded a substantial window ; and when he perceived 
that his request would not be complied with he suspended 
a blanket across the open space. This was removed with 
a threat of expulsion ; afterwards Halfacre sulked and 
said nothing, except that his premature decease would be 
upon their consciences. 

“ I generally make it a rule to frighten a patient, if I 
see he is not doing his best,” said the doctor. “So I 
tell you that if a man doesn’t do well at the start he is not 
likely to do well at all. I can only give you the treat- 
ment which is likely to cure you, and will do so if you 
exert yourself. But if you refuse to use your determina- 
tion I can’t make you. There is no disease in which a 
patient can do so much for himself as this.” 

‘‘ I have other matters to occupy my mind,” said Half- 
acre curtly. 

The doctor laughed somewhat ironically. This was 
either supreme unselfishness or supreme folly ; and he 
made up his mind it was the latter. Seating himself upon 
the bed he went on, ” The matron tells me she has great 
trouble with you at meals. Once you were detected trying 
to smuggle your food into a paper bag.” 

” I object to making a brute of myself,” Halfacre said. 
” This stuffing system is vile and degrading. Eating till 
one is sick, then eating again. It is savagery. It recalls 
the worst vices of the Roman Empire in its decadence.” 

” If I remind you that your life may depend upon it?” 
the doctor said, slightly amused. 

” My reply is I cannot believe you.” 

The doctor rose, indignant, more at the supercilious 
manner in which the words were uttered than at the rude- 
ness of them. He made a step to the door, then returned 
and said quietly, ” I should like to know something of 
your family history. Have your parents, or brothers and 
sisters, shown themselves to be susceptible to any par- 
ticular disease?” 

” Every one is more or less diseased, either physically 
or morally,” replied Halfacre. He resented the question 
as a most impertinent one. ” My mother need not be 
included, as she is dead,” he added coldly. 


About Weights and Measures 205 

“Phthisis?” asked the doctor quickly; and Halfacre, 
to save time and trouble, assented. 

“ Is there any insanity in your family?” 

“ There may be. It is a disease which lies latent and 
discovers itself suddenly,” came the exasperating answer. 
“ I only concern myself with the present generation, which 
is immune so far as I am aware. The past neither troubles 
nor interests me.” 

“ Well, Halfacre,” said the doctor sharply, “ I have 
this to say. You are a most unsatisfactory patient, and 
if you won’t alter your ways I cannot keep you here. You 
go walks which I do not send you — to Downacombe 
usually, where it appears you visit the postmaster and 
make speeches to the villagers. You make no effort to 
cure yourself. You must change, my friend, or you must 
go.” 

Out went the doctor with an angry flush on his face, 
while Halfacre relieved himself by muttering, “ Another 
of them — an enemy to the community, a fattener upon the 
poor, a fine gentleman, with twenty suits of clothes and 
one idea.” 

The man was such a mass of contradictory opinions, 
which crossed and cut each other repeatedly like the 
threads of a spider’s web, that he was compelled to com- 
pare others with himself and judge them accordingly. He 
was actually passing sentence upon himself, without 
knowing it, however, for his brain was clever and his mind 
stupid ; he could remember every fact of Roman History, 
but he could not draw a line between two characters. 
Vitellius and Constantine were alike to him, both 
Emperors and therefore oppressors; he could not perceive 
that one had been a man, the other a swine. For him 
there were two classes, the poor and the rich ; every poor 
man was good and suffering, and every rich man was a 
tyrant. Wiser philosophers than Halfacre have fallen 
into the same error of labelling a character according to 
its class. The lowest and highest alike have a butcher’s 
shop side to the character; the desires are the same, 
though the methods may be different ; the gentleman will 
walk delicately after his prey, while the ploughboy 
blunders for it with yells and large boots. They both 
want the same fleshly things. The scholar says bluntly 


206 


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that man is a brute — and then he seduces his landlord’s 
daughter; and never grasps the fact that he is a brute 
himself. The proper study of man is, not other men, but 
beauty which includes women ; and the proper study of 
woman is also beauty which includes man : for the male 
body is more beautiful than the female body, as all statuary 
can testify; only the woman’s head comes into flower 
more, and grows no thorns and spines, and careful culture 
has given her a kind of hybrid fragrance which at its best 
is overwhelming in a small room, and is, indeed, the most 
overpowering thing we know ; and at its worst, when the 
woman tries to force thorns and spines for her own pro- 
tection, it is a public nuisance. The proper study of every 
one, in secret if not in public, is beauty, which is the most 
simple thing created, for directly it begins to call itself 
beautiful it becomes exactly the opposite. The great 
beauty of the flowers consists largely in what appears to 
be their simplicity, their lack of knowledge that they are 
beautiful. If a consciousness of their fragrance was 
inspired into the purple petals of a violet the plant would 
soon become as unsavoury as a drain. 

The weighing-machine was in a recess at the end of the 
passage, and here Mudd was indulging in the illegal 
traffic of a bookmaker, making and taking penny bets. 
Monday morning was a time of gambling, although it w'as 
strictly forbidden on account of its exciting and temper- 
ature lifting tendencies ; but prohibition there as else- 
where made no difference. A modest pool was always 
made, the stakes going to the one who had put on most 
weight. 

'‘Two to one I’ve put on three pounds,” howled the 
publican, ignorant of the doctor’s nearness until he heard 
a grim, ” I’ll take you, Mudd,” which made him skip 
behind Miss Budge, who, he noisily declared, was large 
enough to shadow three of his size. 

“ He can’t help it, doctor,” explained Gumm. ” He 
makes his living that way. He’s paid fines and done time, 
but it don’t cure him. When he’s at home the police 
follow him about as if he was a pretty housemaid.” 

” Wait till I get you outside. I’ll give you a thick ear 
to go on with,” threatened the publican. 

” Why don’t you sack him, doctor?” complained 


About Weights and Measures 207 

Gumm. “What’s the good of Mr. Sill praying for 
peace and brotherhood and God bless our ’ome, 
when we’ve got this serpent in sheep’s clothing roaring 
at us?’’ 

“ Be quiet, you two,’’ said the doctor. “ Come along, 
fat lady.’’ 

This was to Berenice, who with all her faults, and per- 
haps because of them, was the doctor’s favourite. She 
did not move, but said, “ Hurry up. Miss Budge.’’ 

“ I was not spoken to,’’ said that lady. “The doctor 
always addresses me respectfully,’’ she added, somewhat 
coldly. 

“ I’ll give ’em a start,’’ said Gumm, mounting the 
scales with various shocks and concussions. “ I don’t 
want it said that I died bashful. Three pounds and a ’alf 
of your best, please, doctor, and mother says will you 
cut it thick?” 

There followed the usual juggling of weights and bar, 
and then the verdict, “ Three quarters of a pound.” 

“ Throw us in a bit o’ fat, can’t you, doctor?” Gumm 
pleaded. 

“ Hardly three-quarters,” was the answer. 

“ Pay over that twopence,” whispered the avaricious 
Mudd. 

“ You’ll have to wait till I bring my father’s grey hairs 
to the grave and I get the bad shilling he’s promised to 
cut me off with.” 

“ Shell out, or I’ll tell the doctor you’ve been kissing 
the servant.” 

“ I won’t. I’ll plead the Gaming Act. What price 
the mushroom?” 

Miss Budge was upon the scales. She had a trick of 
losing weight for a week or two, then bounding up with 
a fungoid growth. 

“ Can I get you a few more weights, doctor?” asked 
Gumm politely. 

“ Them little scales were never meant for this sort of 
thing. What we want is a weigh-bridge,” said the pub- 
lican, in the manner of one drawing attention to an evil 
of long-standing. “ What’s the tonnage, doctor?” 

“Just over twelve stone,” came the verdict, followed 
by the usual applause and the lady’s expressions of 


2o8 


Heather 


amazement and disgust. “It is positively sickening,” 
she said. “ And I’m sure I don’t eat much.” 

“ She don’t, doctor,” said Mudd. “ She sits next to 
me, so I can bear witness that she’s speaking the truth. 
Last night she couldn’t touch anything, except half a 
chicken, six potatoes in their jackets, with quarter of a 
pound of butter in each, a rice pudding and a dish of 
cream, two bananas and a pint of milk. I kept pressing 
her to try and swallow a few morsels, but ’twas no use. 
She was clean off her feed.” 

“Miserable liar,” said Miss Budge. 

“ Now, Miss Calladine,” said the doctor; and Berenice 
condescended to be weighed, and was found wanting. “ I 
walked more last week, and I was sick twice,” she 
explained ; and for once the noisy Twins said nothing. 

“ We must try and keep that temperature down,” the 
doctor said, as he prepared the scales for little Sill. “ I’ll 
have a talk with you presently.” He glanced at the 
handsome brown girl who looked so strong and well and 
was yet so weak^ and saw her face quiver a little. 

“ Come along, Sill,” called the doctor, and Mudd began 
at once to whistle, “ Onward Christian soldiers,” while 
Gumm remarked, “He’s a loser. Fasts twice a week, 
and never has more than two goes at the jam-pudding on 
Fridays. ” 

“ I feel heavier, anyhow,” said the curate pleasantly. 

“ The Episcopalian waistcoat is a bit more on the 
slope,” Mudd agreed. 

“ Three pounds,” said the doctor. 

“Just what I was asking for,” said Gumm in an 
aggrieved voice. “ The parson has the pull over us. He 
gets his bit by praying for it.” 

“I suppose you’re too bashful to ask,” said the pub- 
lican with irony. 

“I’m not in the business like he is. He knows the 
ropes,” said Gumm. “ If I was to pray for weight the 
orders would be sure to get mixed up, and likely enough 
we’d have rain instead.” 

The doctor took an arm of each of the hulking men- 
children and pushed them along the passage saying, “ Out 
you go. I have to weigh Miss Shazell. ” The Twins went 
unwillingly, Gumm offering sixpence for permission to 


About Weights and Measures 209 

remain, and Mudd begging to be appointed clerk of the 
scales. 

Winnie had worn night-dress and dressing-gown the 
first time she had been weighed, and it was therefore 
necessary that she should present herself in the same attire 
for every subsequent operation. She would never forget 
that second weighing. It was a chilly morning, there 
was a heavy mist and a slight flurry of unseasonable snow. 
A lamp was required by the scales. When she was called 
it was like going to execution; the early hour, the cold 
and mists, the solemn tramp of feet outside, and that 
horrid machine gleaming at the end of the passage. If 
she had lost any more weight it really was an execution, 
and she knew it ; but if she could have gained there was 
a chance. There were the awful movements of the 
machine, the dreadful suspense which seemed to stop her 
breath, and then those wonderful and impossible words, 
“ Four pounds. ” What a change they made in the weather. 
The mist became sunshine all at once, and the flakes of 
snow were butterflies jumping about in it. Young and 
pretty girls want to live; even when life seems to contain 
nothing for them, except those things which are 
unpleasant, they want to live. For life when one is young 
may always contain the unknown happiness and the 
unknown romance. 

Winnie appeared, excited as usual, and very pretty, her 
flaxen hair glorifying her shoulders, and squire Tobias 
pattering at her side; and for some reason or other her 
little sawn-off nose was more distracting than ever. Even 
the doctor had to be a man sometimes, and as Winnie 
settled on the scales lightly, like a piece of pink heather 
blown in at the window, he made up his mind that she 
must get well. He had sometimes told girl patients, who 
badly needed a little encouragement, that they had put on 
weight, when as a matter of fact they had lost it, and the 
pious fraud had usually been successful and given the 
required stimulus to a greater effort. However there was 
no need for perjury that morning. There were five pounds 
more of Winnie than there had ever been before, five more 
exceedingly pleasant pounds of nice girlhood. She had 
beaten Miss Budge and knocked Sill into third place. She 
had won the sweep-stakes, which were presented to her 

14 


210 


Heather 


by Gumm when the doctor had gone, with a blundering 
speech, an improper compliment, and a bad pun about a 
five-pound-note. She was delighted, and faltered her 
pleasure prettily ; but did not jtell the doctor, Berenice, or 
any one how those precious pounds of flesh had been 
built up, among St. Michael’s oaks, with the water run- 
ning down on two sides, and young leaves learning how 
to lisp on the other, and at the fourth a figure with fine 
head and ragged beard and extremely shabby coat con- 
centrating all his artistic powers upon two dimples and a 
nose. 

“You are improving in a marvellous way. You are 
my prize-patient,” said the doctor, patting her arm 
gently. “ I have never known such an improvement, and 
I should not have thought it possible. The last time I 
examined you the change for the better quite startled 
me. ” 

“ I should like to get well,” said Winnie. 

“It is merely a matter of time. I may tell you now 
what the doctor who sent you here said to me in his letter. 

‘ She is a very delicate girl, peculiarly susceptible to a 
smoky atmosphere, thoroughly weak and sensitive. I am 
afraid she will not do well.’ That was my own opinion,” 
he went on. “ When I saw you and had examined you 
I gave you three months. If you had gone back in the 
first fortnight I should have been compelled to send you 
home. ” 

“ How many months will you give me now?” asked 
Winnie, wondering why he looked the other way, as she 
was only standing there in her usual defenceless attitude 
biting at a little bit of her hair. 

“ As many as you like if you’re good,” he said laugh- 
ing. “ If you are well taken care of you might live to 
be eighty.” 

This was rather an exaggeration, and, although Winnie 
guessed as much, it pleased her. It would be nice to live 
a long time in some pleasant place. Wheal Dream for 
instance, if only she was well taken care of. 

The sun was so powerful that strolling and sitting 
about, instead of brisk walks, were the order of the morn- 
ing. The heat of the sun increases weakness just as it 
increases strength; and as the only shade in that part of 


About Weights and Measures 21 1 

the moor was to be found at Wheal Dream thither the 
patients went. They were not in a particularly hilarious 
mood, because Monday always cast a shadow and made 
them think of matters which they were not at liberty to 
express. Even Gumm and Mudd felt the chasteningf effect 
of weighing-morning, and found it difficult to insult each 
other with the proper degree of grossness. Miss Budge 
was the first to escape from the house after an unusually 
silent breakfast; and when the two girls, walking to- 
gether, reached the rotten old fence which had been 
erected generations ago to prevent wandering drunkards 
from toppling into the mine shaft, and was itself tumbling 
about in every strange attitude of insecurity, they found 
the poor lady with red eyes ; she was not very ill, but she 
was miserable, as she had long ago awakened to the fact 
that she was not old, but too old ; that is to say, she had 
never been attractive to the opposite sex, and now, in 
spite of her light talk, she was not even attractive to her- 
self. She was quite superfluous, and when a woman is 
that, she can only draw attention to herself by being 
eccentric, by wearing childish apparel, or painting an inch 
thick, or by screaming about the streets for visionary 
rights. If she cannot do any of these things she must sit 
at home, cherish a cat, chirp “ pretty dick ” to a canary, 
knit a sock or two, and grow gradually into a piece of 
wormwood. Women, strangely enough, never cry out for 
the privilege of using their free-will ; they have been given 
the gift, but men and that queer thing modesty have never 
allowed them to use it, thus making women in one sense 
the lowest of all created things ; for even the flea jumps as 
it likes and the bindweed twines where it will. Woman 
alone has to wait her invitation to jump and the order to 
twine ; and if invitation or order never come, as is common 
enough, she must not jump, neither may she twine. Life 
was not altogether an apple-orchard for Miss Budge. She 
had reached that time of life when an unmarried woman 
has no age, she was alone, and although she had sufficient 
money for her needs, it was not enough to buy friends. 
The rich young man and the handsome girl can pick up 
as many fine-weather friends as they like, while they 
remain rich and handsome; but the poor man and the 
quaint spinster have to worm their way along, and are 


212 


Heather 


often elbowed out of the way while glancing enviously 
at the high-priced articles labelled, “ Latest style of 
friendship; warranted to wear well; terms strictly cash,” 
knowing well enough that such luxuries are not for them 
simply because they haven’t got the money. They may 
stand at the corners and howl, but nobody will listen 
except the policeman, wdio will tell them to move on. The 
poor man in his lodgings, the quaint spinster among her 
faded furniture, with her lined and hungry face near the 
window between a pair of dusty ferns, looking for the 
postman who never stops there — these are tragedies of 
silence, without orchestra, scenery or an audience ; darker 
in their spiritual way perhaps than the full-blooded deeds 
of drink and passion which fill the newspapers. The bright 
side of life is at the far end of a passage filled with guarded 
doors ; those who are able to say the word Love without 
stammering may go through, though if they stammer it is 
all up with them, and the punishment for a fraudulent 
attempt is often a heavy one; all the others must unlock 
each door with a golden key, after strangling the 
guardians one by one. 

” Billy, I’ve got the blues,” said Berenice, when they 
had settled themselves at the old mine. 

” I haven’t — for once,” said Winnie. ” If you lean back 
you’ll never have the blues again, but you’ll have the 
blacks dreadful,” she went on nervously. ” Come and sit 
by me and I’ll hold your hand.” 

That was Winnie’s infallible remedy. She had an idea 
that any one was better after a restful period of her hand- 
holding, although a pathologist might have puzzled his 
brains asunder in trying to discover the secret. ” Sit 
here,” she said, patting a big cushion of moss. 

Berenice was easily tempted from her rather perilous 
position at the edge of the wheal. She swung one arm 
round Winnie’s waist, drew her close, and there they sat, 
flaxen hair against brown hair, like a couple of lovers. 

” It’s not often I get you all to myself like this,” said 
Berenice cosily. 

” Your hand is bigger than mine. Yours is brown and 
mine is white,” said Winnie, playing with the brown 
fingers. ” Don’t you think mine is getting rather 
dumply?” ^ 


About Weights and Measures 213 

“ Rather what?” asked Berenice, because she wanted 
to see Winnie mouth that word again. 

” A dumply shape, fat, puddeny,” laughed Winnie. 

” Well, so it ought, considering all that weight. And 
I’ve lost again.” 

“You will make it up next week, and get a pound or 
two thrown in, to go on with, as Gumm would say. You 
needn’t be blue, as I’m sure you are doing splendidly.” 

‘‘I’m not. Doctor’s been jawing like anything. He 
says I walk too fast, and think too fast, and do everything 
too fast, and I’ve got to consider myself a crock, and it 
seems to me I can’t laugh without sending my beastly 
temperature up.” 

‘‘ But you can take things easily and be just as happy,” 
said Winnie, doubling her companion’s little finger and 
squeezing it playfully. ‘‘ I should not want to kill myself 
with sports and dances. It’s not worth the fun. I can 
sit still and be happy — if I have any one to sit with,” 
she added rather unhappily. 

‘‘ I can’t. I must be in the middle of things or nowhere. 
I suppose I shall be nowhere,” said Berenice angrily. She 
could not find any justice in her illness. ‘‘ The doctor 
says if I tear about I am sure to have a ” 

‘‘ Don’t,” cried Winnie shudderingly. ‘‘ I can’t hear 
that word. It is my horror. If I had one, the sight alone 
would kill me.” 

‘‘ You can shut your eyes and keep them shut until it’s 
all over, and you know whether you are alive or dead,” 
said Berenice with indifference, and a disregard of such 
a little matter as consciousness. ” But we mustn’t talk 
like this. I shall be all right by this evening when I have 
written home and made my lamentation. Old Budge is 
leaving soon. She needn’t have come as there’s nothing 
much the matter, only she likes being here and having 
company. Poor old thing, she lives all alone and 
plays cards with her servants every evening to pass the 
time.” 

” I like being here too,” said Winnie. 

‘‘ But you’re a miserable little humbug. You used to 
cry and sob and howl until I was nearly coming in to 
smack you.” 

‘‘ I was very ill in those days, and the cold was dreadful. 


Heather 


214 

I had snow on my pillow one night, and I was so thin 
that the wind blew right through me.” 

” I heard you blubbering,” said Berenice, “and when 
doctor came in I asked about you, and he said, ‘It’s a 
case of kill or cure with that little thing.’ I said I didn’t 
like to hear you, and mightn’t you have a hot bottle; and 
he said, ‘ Certainly not, let her freeze ’ — unfeeling brute. 
He didn’t know I had a hot bottle. I brought it with me 
and heated the water with a spirit-lamp. How much 
longer are you staying?” she asked. 

Winnie flushed and trembled, and squeezed her com- 
panion’s finger more than ever as she murmured. “ I 
hardly know.” After a pause she added more boldly, 
“ Until mother gets tired of keeping me here, I suppose.” 

This was a lie, quite a small and white one, one of those 
unnecessary little remarks which fall easily off the tongue 
and cannot be recalled, and lead to troubles. Winnie was 
sorry she had spoken ; and she was positively miserable 
when she heard Berenice say, “ Where do you live, 
Billy?” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Winnie, but she had to answer, 
“Near Plymouth.” That was vague, and ought to be 
satisfactory. She felt sure she would be forgiven, as an 
untruth cannot be wicked if it harms no one. 

“ In the country?” asked the brown girl. 

“ You live at Bideford, don’t you?” said Winnie with 
startling innocence. 

“ Just outside, in a big sand-hole.” 

“ You ought not to have broken down,” said Winnie, 
trying to steer away from the quicksands of her own 
existence. “You don’t come from the smoke.” 

“Too much general strenuosity,” said Berenice 
moodily. “ Bideford, Appledore, and all that bit of level 
land between the Torridge and the sea, are beastly 
unhealthy. But you don’t come from the smoke?” she 
said, and stopped, leaving poor Winnie at the mercy of 
Beelzebub. 

“ Well, it’s foggy and damp— and there is smoke from 
Plymouth,” she faltered, hoping she would not be com- 
pelled to utter the awful word Keyham. 

“ The wind brings it over, I suppose?” 

“ Yes,” said W^innie eagerly, which was another 


About Weights and Measures 215 

untruth, as the smoke upon her home was so dense that 
it would have required a regular Euroclydon to have swept 
it away. 

“ What’s your address? I shall write to you, and 
come and visit you. Billy, you’re breaking my little finger 
in two places.” 

” What a pretty ring,” said Winnie desperately, twist- 
ing the bauble round and round, and thinking of one that 
was hers, a hateful object, buried in cotton-wool at the 
bottom of her box. 

” Don’t be such a kitten. I’ll write down your address 
now — on the last page of this book where they’ve just 
married and are going to scratch at each other ever after- 
wards. Miss Winifred Shazell — have you any other 
name, Billy?” 

” Yes, Erica.” 

” Why, that means heather,” exclaimed Berenice. 

” Does it? I never knew. I’m not certain I was 
given that name at my baptism, but father always called 
me Erica because he said it suited me. I never knew 
why. I was only a small wild moorland maid in those 
days. ” 

” Don’t think me clever,” said Berenice. ” But I heard 
that Halfacre of ours talk about erica this and erica that, 
and he told me it meant heather. Now, what’s the 
address?” 

That question was a big stone wall. Winnie had to 
climb it with a fib, or knock her head against it by being 
silent. Number 6, Butcher’s Row, which was her correct 
address, and was, as she had said, “ near Plymouth,” was 
clearly inadmissible. She sighed and thought of many 
pleasant places which would do quite well to live at, but 
they were all on the Dartmoor side of the big town which 
has been baptised by the river Plym ; and she couldn’t 
say she had merely come from one part of the moor to 
another. It would not be true, but then, whatever she 
said would not be true. Half acre knew all about Butcher’s 
Row, and the awful people who lived opposite, and the 
equally appalling personalities who dwelt upon each side, 
but she had been forced to tell him the truth because he 
had made her, just as she was being compelled to tell 
Berenice untruths because she was making her. 


2i6 


Heather 


“ It’s only a little place,” she said, trying to speak con- 
temptuously, referring truthfully to her home, although 
Berenice was not to know that, and hoping that she need 
not mention the name just because it was little. 

” Dear little Bill,” said the brown girl. ” I believe you 
hate your home.” 

‘‘Oh no,” cried Winnie. ‘‘ Of course not;” although 
she did. 

‘‘ Miss Winifred, William, Dimples, Shazell,” said 
Berenice, writing part of this down in small characters. 

‘‘ Heatherside, ” gasped Winnie. That was a good safe 
name for a house, suggestive of the country and liberty ; 
and not so very false either, as she remembered there 
was a black lodging-house, right at the bottom of the most 
unsavoury bowel of Keyham, called for some reason 
unrevealed Heatherside. She passed it on her way to 
work, and had sometimes seen a half-dressed man smoking 
a clay pipe at the door. The next house to it, which was 
kept under close surveillance by the police, was called 
‘‘ The Lindens,” though Winnie was rather vague as 
to what a linden might be, and the tenants of the house 
had never bothered their heads about such a matter. Per- 
haps there had been lime-trees when that street had been 
planned, but they would not have stood long after the 
builder had caught sight of them. The sight of a piece of 
grass or a bank of flowers — weeds they’re called — drive a 
borough council or a builder to fury, and when a tree 
appears the latter gentlemen invariably ‘‘ sees red ” and 
nothing else until the horror has been removed, and he 
can gaze with sanity restored upon soothing heaps of 
mortar, mud and brickbats. 

‘‘ It’s down,” said Berenice. ” Any one might think 
you were confessing to a murder, silly blue-eyed thing.” 

‘‘Well, it’s not a nice part,” owned Winnie, hoping 
Berenice would misunderstand her; which she did. 

‘‘ Villages are horrid when a town grows towards 
them. They are neither one thing nor the other. I 
suppose Heatherside near Plymouth wouldn’t find you, 
though. ” 

‘‘ No,” said Winnie plaintively. Then she closed her 
eyes and plunged into deep waters, murmuring, ‘‘ Plym- 
Stock — it’s a horrid place, but there’s a fine screen in the 


About Weights and Measures 217 

church.” She thought she was right in that final state- 
ment. 

” How do you pass the time, Billy? You don’t seem to 
care a hang about clothes. Have you any musical or 
artistic vices?” 

The little girl shook her head. It was easier to tell the 
truth mutely; and her tongue had become so wicked she 
could hardly trust it. 

‘‘ Do you whirl round any social circle? Is Plymstock 
a centre for tea and talk?” 

‘‘ I don’t,” said Winnie quite truly. The late after- 
noon was a busy time in the sub-post-office, as people 
rushed in and out with grimy germ-infested coppers, 
anxious indirectly to improve the revenue. People in that 
district bought their stamps one at a time, and sometimes 
Winnie became so confused that she overlooked a penny 
which its owner never forgot, and she had to make the 
deficiency good out of her shallow purse. 

” You don’t play games,” Berenice went on. ” I sup- 
pose you just lie about and dream. But how about the 
men ?” 

Winnie wriggled, and thought it was time to discuss 
mining or some other moorland industry. There was a 
peat-bog upon the other side of the river. She pointed 
to it and asked Berenice if she wouldn’t rather talk about 
that. 

” Answer me properly, or I’ll push you down the shaft 
and then hurl rocks upon you. It’s not likely that men 
leave you alone, because every male thingumbob here is 
in love with you.” 

” Oh no,” cried Winnie decidedly. ” Not all.” 

” Don’t contradict. I hate you really, because I was 
number one before you were let loose, and now I’m 
bracketed second with the Budge atrocity.” 

‘‘ Miss Budge is silly, but she’s kind. Don’t say any- 
thing nasty about her,” pleaded Winnie. ” She strokes 
my hand and calls me pretty names— and that’s the sort 
of thing that makes me fat,” she said more brightly. 

‘‘Tell me about the men,” said Berenice; but Winnie 
rebelled, and declared she wouldn’t. So the brown girl 
pinched her until she gave little rabbit-like screams, and 
said she wouldn’t stay to be persecuted any longer, but 


2i8 


Heather 


would go and sit with Miss Budge who was diligently 
perusing a romantic tale lower down the gorge. However, 
Berenice held her tightly ; and then she said, ‘ ‘ The first 
evening you were here, before you were smacked and put 
to bed for being so ill, I saw an engagement-ring nearly 
falling off this wee thin finger. Where is that ring now, 
Billy?” 

” Why, it has fallen off altogether,” said Winnie, trying 
to speak lightly. 

‘‘You haven’t lost it?” 

‘‘ No,” came the answer, the short word sounding very 
long and woeful. 

‘‘ Billy, speak properly, or I’ll shake you. It’s a regular 
operation to get an answer out of you. If you are still 
engaged you have got to tell me, and then I shall see the 
man, and if he isn’t good enough, which is quite impos- 
sible, I shall refuse my consent. I don’t want you to 
marry, little Bill. I want to have you myself.” 

Winnie wondered at that. She knew nothing of the 
love which goes out to its own sex and almost disregards 
the other; an unnatural and barren kind of love, and yet 
as enduring as any. But there was no getting away from 
the evidence of that ring. She might tell Berenice a part 
of the truth ; she was always wanting to tell some one ; 
there might be a way out even then, and if there was one 
Berenice might possibly suggest it. So she said in a suffo- 
cated voice, ‘‘ Yes, I am engaged.” 

‘‘ And you’re wretched about it?” 

‘‘ Rather. I — I don’t care enough about him.” 

This was putting the fact so mildly that it almost 
amounted to another untruth. 

‘‘ Now I understand your wobbling ways. A man has 
got hold of you, and you’re much too nervous to tell him 
to let go. Say yes.” 

‘‘ Partly yes,” Winnie amended. 

‘‘ You must toss him overboard, and shut your ears if 
he screams and says he can’t swim,” went on the girl 
with the club-shaped heart. ‘‘ My dear Billy, it’s so easy 
to chuck a man over, as easy as cracking an egg-shell, 
and it’s fun, too, when you get used to it. Look here. I’ll 
chuck him over for you.” 

‘‘Oh no,” begged Winnie, who was beginning to have 


About Weights and Measures 219 

trouble with her throat. “ I am bound to him, Berenice 
— really. He’s given me so much.” 

” Presents you mean. Send ’em back. Pack ’em all 
off in a box with a nice scented note saying, ‘ Take back 
the gifts that thou gavest, man, for 1 don’t love you any 
more, man, and as a matter of fact I never did love you, 
man, but I said I did just to save you from cutting your 
throat and making a mess on the carpet, man.” 

Winnie tried to laugh, but the effort ended in oozy 
sounds which brought on coughing. She bowed herself 
like a weeping-birch, then quite suddenly turned and 
kissed Berenice, saying with a sob, ‘‘There, that’s one 
for you.” 

‘‘ Well, of all the dear children ” began Berenice. 

‘‘ Don’t say anything more about that man. Let’s talk 
about dreams and ghosts, and postmen with wooden legs, 
and owls with false teeth, and — and wheals full of moons 
and stars.” 

‘‘ Billy, darling, you’re just as mad as a bee in a bottle,” 
said Berenice tenderly. ‘‘Tell me the truth,” she com- 
manded, loving her, smoothing her fair hair, and running 
a finger playfully over the sawn-off nose. ‘‘ Do your 
people know of the man and like him ? And why have you 
been and made a small goose of yourself?” 

‘‘ No more of him, please. He makes my head ache,” 
said a small voice. 

‘‘ Oh, but I am not going to have my Billy bullied,” 
said Berenice. ‘‘ We’ll write to him in the rest hour 
this evening. I’ll slip into your room and tell you what 
to say. I’ve had practice. I know something about men. 
They curl up like frightened spiders when they get march- 
ing-orders, and they don’t tell any one because they are 
too conceited. Is it an engagement on the sly?” 

There was a negative movement upon Berenice’s 
shoulder. 

‘‘ Does your mother know?” 

There was an affirmative movement. 

” Oh, Billy, he’s not below you— not a rich bounder?” 

There was no movement at all. 

” Squeeze my hand if he is.” 

It was one way out of the maze, perhaps the easiest 
way, so Winnie took it. 


220 


Heather 


“ Don’t say your mother is driving you into it. Billy, 
I’ll look after you,” Berenice whispered passionately. 
” I’ll face them for you, and then we’ll go away and live 
together. The brutes— they shan’t have you, darling. I 
love you too much, sweet little Bill — I do, with all my soul. 
If I have been nasty once or twice it was because of my 
temper, and I was cross for a bit when Tobias left me for 
you ; but I do love you, and I’m not going to let any man, 
mother or monster take you away from me.” 

She broke into a fit of coughing, put her handkerchief 
to her mouth, and shuddered when she saw a spot upon 
it; then flung the thing away down the shaft. Winnie 
shivered too, although she had seen nothing ; but she could 
not understand that violence or Berenice’s meaning, or 
what it was that had been offered her, or that mysterious 
affinity which exists sometimes between creatures structur- 
ally alike. 

” You’re not a man,” she said playfully. That was the 
only sort of love that Winnie comprehended, the love 
between Strongheart and Clinging-heart. ” We are both 
girls,” sighed Winnie. 

” I don’t know what I am sometimes,” said Berenice. 
She was cold again, terribly frightened by that little spot 
which seemed to rise into the air between her and the sun 
and stain all things red. She was not made for passion ; 
neither was Winnie. They were weak growths, loosely 
rooted in the soil, every gust of wind straining their roots, 
threatening to remove and whirl them away to the place 
where the storm ends. 

George was wasting his time again, sitting at the 
window, his hands arched about his eyes, watching, not 
two heads, but one head which appeared sometimes 
through a rift in the bracken. He had seen the girls go 
down ; Winnie never passed the wheal unobserved, for 
those patient eyes were always watching for her, and the 
tongue which pretended to be so flippant was always trying 
to speak to her across the gorge which existed in more 
senses than one. His physical weakness increased his love, 
that unusual love which is simply a craving to reach a 
soul. There he sat while his paintbrush stiffened, and 
peeped between his hands, which made a frame to that 
small picture. Presently the heads disappeared and Wheal 


About Weights and Measures 221 

Dream became unadorned. Georg’e stirred, released his 
breath with something' like a groan, and then, with a 
scuffle and a wriggle and a merry pattering of little pads, 
Tobias trotted in at the ever-open door and said in his 
own way, “ Hello.” He had brought a stone with him, 
a scrap of gleaming quartz, and he placed it carefully in 
the middle of the room, licked it, danced round it, and 
wagged the words — 

” This is a stone, the geological formation of which I 
do not pretend to understand. You take it, George, and 
behold I leap. You fling it from the window and I dis- 
appear. I get it, I return in one twinkle, I deposit it at 
your feet ; again you throw ; again I vanish. It is simple. 
It goes on for ever. What say you?” 

George understood dog-English fairly well. What man 
who lives much alone does not? Tobias was a pleasant 
purgative; no one could retain melancholy for long in the 
presence of that joyous bounding little body of frolicsome 
flesh and indiarubber bones, every square inch of which 
seemed to be charged with ten thousand volts of fun and 
mischief. 

” So you have called upon me at last,” said the artist in 
his dry way. ” W’^e have been residents for some time, 
but you have avoided me until to-day, although we have 
nodded at each other in passing, and I have noticed an 
abashed look in your eye as though you were saying, ‘ I 
must really go and call on that man.’ I am glad to see 
you, young sir. It is kind of you to visit a crabbed and 
venerable man, and I would not suggest that in so doing 
you are actuated by any selfish motive. Mr. Tobias, I 
believe, aged two? You have the advantage over me in 
name. You are among the minor prophets, although 
theologians might declare you to be apocryphal. I am 
George, a husbandman, not a man who is a husband, nor 
even one who labours in tillage, but onv'i who is false to 
the etymology which has been forced upon him, has gone 
the wrong way, left the unploughed field for the primrose- 
bank, and seeks to supply the public with precisely those 
things which they do not require. I trust we shall become 
better acquainted. Even at this early stage of our friend- 
ship you will permit me to remark that your complete lack 
of dignity is hardly becoming to a Biblical character, and 


222 


Heather 


indeed is more suggestive of a bibulous nature. Regard 
me as George — a poor name and not even my own ; for 
the angel who edits the directories of the heavenly country 
bright has only to shout that name to have saints, martyrs, 
and agricultural labourers crowding in upon him by the 
million. Georgie or Geordie, if you care to be familiar, 
and I will even answer to the bucolic title of Jarge. I 
must, however, mention that there is no connection 
between me and the gentleman who has become notorious 
through his scandalous habits of kissing the girls and 
making them cry. He is more particularly referred to in 
the police-reports as pudding and pie, and his alias is 
Porgie. It has been suggested in this immediate neigh- 
bourhood that this gentleman and myself are one and the 
same person, and I have been compelled to write to the 
newspapers disclaiming all connection. Were I to kiss 
the girls they would doubtless weep bitterly, but up to the 
present time I have neglected every opportunty in that 
direction. ” 

George was bustling about the work-room all the time 
he was rambling his rubbish, trying to restore a certain 
sequence to a number of sheets of manuscript which had 
been blown about while he was keeping vigil at the 
window. Tobias stood guarding the stone, his tail work- 
ing like an excited weathercock, his tongue out two inches, 
his eyes as bright as a couple of wet stones. Then he 
discovered something sedate enthroned upon a perch, and 
moved towards it with a sniffing nose. 

“Pardon me,” said George. “This is the senior 
partner, who supplies such brains as the firm possesses. 
Our Mr. Bubo, past-master of the order of crepuscular 
and obfuscated owlets. He is not an old master, nor is 
his present condition one of masterly inactivity ; neither 
is he a sleeping partner. At the present moment he is 
brooding in a dark and inscrutable manner over the 
ultimate destiny of the short-eared strigidae. I must 
apologise for such imposing words, but he always uses 
them. A philosopher cannot think except in polysyllabic 
words. You are requested not to tease the metaphysician. 
He might get angry and peck you ; and then you would 
probably die of bubonic plague.” 

The little dog laughed at such sport, and bringing his 


About Weights and Measures 223 

stone laid it tenderly at the artist’s feet. George had 
finished his collection, and was free to accept the invita- 
tion. He snatched at the stone, Tobias hurled his mad 
self upon the hand, was rejected, came again with furious 
barks and gentle teeth, and they rolled together upon the 
floor, a disgraceful and unseemly sight. Bubo lifted up 
his eyes to heaven, and would have wept had he only 
known how. The man of forty was playing the fool, and 
it was doing him more good than all the arts. 

“ This is atrocious. My reputation,” gasped George. 
“All is now lost, including honour. Down with heart- 
ache. A has respectability. Conspuez my grey beard. 
To the devil with my summers. Ah, would you, assassin ! 
The foul fiend fly away with my Georgian whiskers. 
Angels restore me a dimpling childhood. Peace, young- 
ster, we are discovered. The bird of wisdom fixes us with 
a hypnotic stare. The wise have no compassion upon 
folly. Bubo,” he shouted in his boisterous, boyish way, 
” we are enlarging the premises, extending the business. 
This is the athletic department — Tobias and Brunacombe, 
aged two.” 

There came a shadow across the floor, a body at the open 
door, and a rather sneering voice asking if anything was 
wrong. George shambled up and stood confused like a 
school-boy caught making faces at his master. It was 
Halfacre with a theological looking volume under his 
arm. 

” Only having a game with the little dog,” George 
muttered, blowing out his cheeks and slapping his hands 
together, quite unconscious of his wildly ruffled head and 
the dust and white hairs which smothered his sack-like 
clothing. 

” I thought the place was on fire, or that you were in a 
fit,” said Halfacre, walking inside and gazing about with 
his nose elevated. Folly such as playing with a dog was 
beyond his comprehension. It was the duty of man, not 
to skip about like a young calf, but to devote his energies, 
and life if necessary, to the great questions of social 
reform. Halfacre had a poor opinion of George, regard- 
ing him as a man whose duty it was to go out with a 
pot and brush and beautify gate-posts, and call himself 
what he was, an artisan, instead of staying at home, paint- 


Heather 


224 

ing canvases different colours and claiming to be a gentle- 
man. Every man who is a humbug regards others as 
humbugs, just as every drunken man thinks he is the only 
sober person in a crowd. Halfacre had no idea how hard 
George worked for the very little money he got, but he 
had a clear notion that everything he owned ought to be 
taken away from him and given to those poor people of 
the stamp of Jimmy Gifford who did not feel inclined to 
work for themselves. The coat-of-arms, those three 
pelicans wounding themselves, aroused his anger. No man 
had any right thus to advertise his possession of such a 
piece of arrogance. Possibly it was the idea which was 
distasteful to him, the pelicans drawing blood to feed their 
young. Had they been sensible birds, imbued with proper 
social ideas, they would have fed the youngsters upon the 
blood of somebody else. 

George felt at no disadvantage before this man, although 
Halfacre was tidy and well-brushed ; many a young woman 
would have adored him in the up-to-date fashion by 
drowning herself with him, but the artist could not help 
thinking that such girls would belong to the lowest class. 
Halfacre was well-dressed, yet his clothes would not hang 
properly ; they looked as if they had been made for some 
one else. There was about him an undefinable air of 
awkwardness, as if he wanted to behave in the right way 
and didn’t quite know how to manage it. While he was 
standing there George recognised that he himself was a 
gentleriian ; and Halfacre somehow suggested the sort of 
individual who would wear a silk hat in the country, 
applaud at a theatre, and peruse the feuilleton in a half- 
penny newspaper. 

“You have a nice place here. Don’t you find it hard 
to pass the time?” said Halfacre. 

“ I can pretty nearly pass the time by answering that 
question,” said George rather irritably. “ Everybody 
supposes that because I live out here I can’t be doing 
anything. ” 

“ Reading?” asked the other, absolutely ignoring easel 
and canvases and all other signs of labour. 

“And writing and arithmetic; and teaching my owl to 
hoot in F flat,” said George crossly. “That’s how I 
make my living.” 


About Weights and Measures 225 

“ It must be interesting,” said Halfacre cynically. 
“You have plenty of books. Any in Greek and Latin?” 
he asked eagerly. 

” A few, but I never look at ’em.” 

” Can you read Latin?” 

” I don’t try,” said George. ” What’s the good?” 

” That is nonsense, Mr. Brunacombe. Absolute rub- 
bish,” cried Halfacre in a strained and excited voice which 
made George glance round quickly. ” I am a classical 
scholar — a scholar of Balliol,” he added, dropping his 
voice to a whisper of awe and reverence. ‘ ‘ There is no 
man living who could give me information concerning the 
enclitic particles. I am an exceedingly clever man, Mr. 
Brunacombe. ” 

George did not hasten to light a joss-stick and wave it 
beneath Halfacre’s nose; nor did he place the man between 
burning candles as a preparation to falling down and doing 
him worship. He merely snorted and made a face at 
Bubo, who responded by scratching his eye as though 
desiring to draw the visitor’s attention to the absence 
of green in that large and glassy orb. 

” I too am an exceedingly clever man, Mr. Halfacre,” 
said George gravely, wondering which of them, the 
lion comique, or the lion bombastic, would outroar the 
other. 

“You a clever man!” cried Halfacre in a wild and 
startled way. “ What are your honours? Are you even 
a master of arts?” 

“ I’m an old master — at least I shall be when I’ve been 
dead a few hundred years,” George chuckled. “ My pic- 
tures are on their way to the National Gallery and the 
Louvre, though they may be a long time getting there. 
My place in literature has not yet been assigned, but I 
expect to come somewhere between the unknown author 
of the book of Job and Jane Austen. As a sculptor Michael 
Angelo comes an easy second to me, although I must admit 
I have never completed a model, and as an artist I should 
have been unrivalled if there had only been no com- 
petition. Music I have not taken up seriously, and yet my 
oratorio scored for tin-whistle, mouth-organ, and jew’s- 
harp has never been imitated. I have also a genius for 
marbles, and have only once been defeated. That was at 

15 


226 


Heather 


school, where Smith Major conquered me, not by superior 
skill, but by punching my head at a critical moment.” 

Half acre gave an undecided cackle, and said, This is 
only fooling.” 

” All life is fooling,” said George cheerfully. ” Even 
our work consists in fooling others to get money to fool 
with. Like to hear one of my sonnets, Mr. Scholar? 
There is a native simplicity about them which appeals to 
every one, to crowned heads as well as bald heads, and 
they have a touching pathos which can only be described 
as entirely Brunacombian. I owe nothing to Shakespear; 
the debt, if any, is upon the other side. There is a cipher 
running through the tragedy of Hamlet which if it were 
discovered, and I am free to admit that it never will be, 
would prove to the astonished world that the masterpiece 
is one of those little things thrown off by myself in a few 
idle and prenatal moments. Here is one,” said George, 
picking up a scribbling book, and glancing in a none too 
friendly fashion at his uninvited visitor, who was standing 
near the table white-faced and uncomfortable. Halfacre 
was entirely unaccustomed to this style of conversation. 
He could make nothing out of it though it was clearly 
nonsense, but he was wondering if it was meant to be 
insulting or whether it was really genteel to talk like that. 
George started a little when he saw that face, and the 
eyes protruding slightly, and the fingers on each hand 
worrying each other like ten excited infants. The man 
looked distraught and ill. He went on, however, without 
mercy, for he could not forget how this man walked and 
talked with Winnie, and how he had worn that white 
heather, and how he had sneered to see the romp with 
Tobias. 

” It is written in dialect, and the metre is irregular. A 
genius is not to be bound by trifles. Only school-children 
and lawyers require a knowledge of spelling. Great poets 
and business-men rise superior to it. When a child spells 
opportunity with one p he gets spanked, unless he can 
plead a previous American training; but if I omit the p 
through ignorance, it is called a poetical license. Here 
is the sonnet. It is called ‘ The Soul’s Awakening,’ ” said 
George, in deep and tender tones. Then he read in his 
most impressive manner — 


About Weights and Measures 227 

“ Me and Bubo, and old Vaither Chown, 

Us went all together to Exeter Town, 

Where us bought some glasses vor poor old Granmer ; 
Granmer be blind, and can’t very wull see. 

And one day her took the old jackass vor me.” 

There was a blundering movement in the room, and 
George looked up with a broad grin in time to see Half- 
acre’s back retreating rapidly, and to hear a wild voice 
muttering something about “ that moon;” which the artist 
heard and wondered at. He was soon laughing with a 
noise that must have followed the scholar into his retire- 
ment, slapping his leg and saying to Bubo, “That wur 
one vor his nob. Us downed ’en proper in a fair 
wrastling-match, though us bain’t gurt poets and artists, 
but plain manufacturers of rubbish for the children of Israel. 
He won’t come here again, Bubo. A little bit more of his 
turned-up nose and white teeth, and we should have been 
sprawling on the mat here, with you for referee, in the 
Gr£ECO-Roman classical style. I’d have given him the 
half-Nelson and a whole Napoleon under your very eyes. 
I ’d have smashed him into enclitic particles with an accent 
on every one of them. That’ll teach him to walk into the 
factory during business hours to sneer at the old-estab- 
lished firm of Bubo and Brunacombe. ” 

There came a strange noise from the little patch of steep 
garden below the Wheal House, and George hurried to the 
window and looked out. He kept bees; two hives were 
beneath the hedge, and between them and the house were 
broad patches of flowers. Halfacre had not gone away. 
He was in that patch of garden, and there was evidently 
something the matter with him. Possibly George had 
upset him badly, perhaps he was labouring under some 
unpleasant form of influence, or had become afflicted with 
sudden delusions. He was running after a large majestic 
bumble-bee which boomed derisively before his nose; and 
he was striking at it furiously, cursing it, shrieking 
at it — 

“ Go out, you blackguard. Get out of the garden. You 
are not Mr. Brunacombe ’s bee. You have no right to 
the honey here. Get out on the moor, you filthy black- 
guard. ” 

His face was very white, and his dark eyes seemed to 


228 


Heather 


be on fire with fury. George put his lips into whistling 
shape, but made no sound and said nothing just then ; 
while Halfacre went on screaming, “ Get out, you lazy, 
thieving blackguard. You want to rob Mr. Brunacombe’s 
bees.” He had his coat off by this time, and was beating 
at the noisy insect with it, shouting, “ Go out and get 
heather-honey, you scoundrel. Get out on the moor, you 
old blackguard — get out.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


ABOUT REALITIES AND UNREALITIES 

When the doctor came on his mid-day round Winnie 
obtained permission to go that afternoon to Downacombe. 
She was rather an ignorant little girl, and there were 
clinging to her the remnants of the old superstition con- 
cerning the spiritual power of priests. Leigh was such 
a good man ; she might confess her difficulties to him ; 
and then perhaps he would show her a way out, and even 
absolve her from meeting the debt. Union with that 
offensive but well-meaning Hawker had always seemed 
impossible even when she was too ill to say anything in 
her own defence; but now that she was getting well in 
her native wind, and the time of the marriage was near, 
she shrank the more. 

George had quite succeeded in making Winnie believe 
that she was obnoxious to him. This was partly due to 
his nervous temperament and partly to the keen percep- 
tion of his poor position. And Winnie always tried to 
frown, and answer shortly, and look as bored as possible 
while he was painting her. It was true that when she 
looked down at her boots he devoured various portions 
of her with his eyes, and sometimes when he turned 
round she had the impudence to blow him a kiss with her 
fingers. They understood each other so well that, while 
Winnie supposed George to be quite one of the brightest 
planets which circle round the sun, and as much above 
her as the top of a mountain is above the bottom of a 
valley, George supposed Winnie to be a happy young 
lady living in the lap of luxury, and therefore as much 
above him as the mountains of the moon are above the 
ooze of the terrestrial seas. That was George’s own way 

229 


Heather 


230 

of putting it, not a very complimentary way, but he was 
not accustomed to putting a high price upon himself. 

Before Winnie started for Downacombe there was some 
fun in the garden. Every bit of amusement was snatched 
at eagerly by the patients, and when it was rumoured 
that Gumm and Mudd were wandering about making 
fools of themselves the others went out to enjoy the 
spectacle. The publican and the sinner had gone into 
the kitchen, which was strictly speaking out of bounds, 
with the idea of being temporarily faithless to their 
wives, the cook being a buxom wench who was not averse 
to the insanitary practice of kissing. Mudd was first 
upon the scene, but before he could do more than supply 
the road to hell with another paving-stone Gumm arrived, 
and, with that lack of breeding which was so strongly 
marked upon his character, pushed aside the man in pos- 
session with the blunt and conceited statement that the 
young woman had repeatedly expressed a decided prefer- 
ence for his embraces. Mudd replied with a single noun 
at the end of several adjectives ; and when it looked like 
strife the damsel, who was just going to prepare stuffing 
for a goose, promised she would grant the somewhat easily 
won favour of her lips to the first man who would bring 
her in a bunch of sage. The overgrown infants blundered 
off, made their way into the garden, and then found them- 
selves helpless. Neither of them knew the herb sage from 
an oak-tree. 

“ What are you two looking for?” called Miss Budge 
pleasantly. 

” My false teeth,” growled Gumm. “I sneezed ’em 
out of my head just now, and I heard ’em drop about here. 
Alfred Mudd is looking for what he ain’t ever likely to 
find, and that’s his character.” 

” What is it really?” whispered Miss Budge. 

” We’re just out to pick a bit of sage for cookie dear,” 
said Mudd in an unguarded moment. 

” Sage,” laughed the spinster. ” Why, there it is.” 

” Shut up,” cried Berenice, pulling her arm down. 

” Where?” asked Mudd. 

” You’re treading on it, fathead,” Gumm shouted. 

” I ain’t. This is — I don’t know its right name, but 
we used to call it a bloody nose at school.” 


About Realities and Unrealities 231 

Gumm unobtrusively picked a nasturtium leaf and sniffed 
at it. 

“ You’re getting warm,” said the curate to Mudd. 

” He don’t need to be told that,” said Gumm, wading 
off with a predatory eye upon some dock-leaves. 

” Why don’t you pick it, Mr. Gumm?” asked Berenice 
innocently. 

” I want to show him up,” said Gumm, wagging his 
big head at the publican. ” Didn’t you see him nearly 
tread on it just now?” 

” No, I didn’t,” cried every one. 

” I did. Put his webbed feet right across it.” 

Mudd was looking longingly at the rhubarb, desiring 
to put out his hand and seize a portion, only not daring to 
run any risks. 

‘‘Are you quite certain you know yourself?” asked 
Miss Budge. 

‘‘ I know it ain’t a mineral, nor yet an insect,” replied 
Gumm. 

‘‘ Sure it isn’t a fruit?” suggested Sill. 

‘‘ You’re funny, ain’t you?” said Gumm, who was be- 
ginning to wish he had never gone near the kitchen. ‘‘ I 
picked sage in our back yard before you ever wore white 
socks and kissed your mammy.” 

‘‘ Now he thinks it grows on the ground,” said Berenice. 

‘‘ Where else would it grow — up in the blooming sky?” 
Gumm shouted; then he went on reviewing geraniums, 
larkspurs, and petunias, and coming to the conclusion that 
they were all unsuitable. 

‘‘ It might save time,” suggested the curate pleasantly, 
‘‘ if you would get a spade and dig for it.” 

‘‘ And if you go on being so smart, you’ll bust all your 
buttons off,” growled Gumm. 

‘‘ Go on, Jim. We’re watching you,” cried the shame- 
less publican. 

‘‘ There’ll be a few watching you if I come across and 
knock holes in your turnip. What are you looking at. 
Miss Shazell?” 

‘‘ The sage,” said Winnie sweetly. 

‘‘ Look the other way, Billy dear,” cried Berenice, 
swinging her round, while Gumm shuffled stealthily to- 
wards the spot she had been looking at; but there were 


232 Heather 

SO many different things to choose from he didn’t know 
which to take. 

“ Pretty nearly got it then,” sneered Mudd. 

” Look here,” shouted the other. ” Do you know sage 
when you see it?” 

” Of course I do,” blustered Mudd. 

” Show it me then,” roared Gumm ; but the publican 
was not going to be caught so easily. 

” I’ll give you half-a-sovereign if you put your hand 
upon it,” Gumm went on, drawing two coppers out of his 
pocket. 

“I’m not going to rob your landlord of his rent,” 
shouted back the publican. 

” There you are, Mr. Mudd,” said Miss Budge, pointing 
slyly to a clump of marigolds. 

” We ain’t all quite as soft as we look,” came the angry 
answer. ” I do know buttercups when I see ’em.” 

There was a bush of rosemary beside the wall, and 
Gumm took his stand over it with an idea that the odour 
was distinctly culinary. He wiped his nose upon the 
bush and said it smelt all right, and he rather thought 
the cook would like some of it anyhow ; which produced 
more laughter, after which Mudd declared, ” That’s 
lavender.” 

The others applauded, and Sill remarked, ” He was 
very nearly right that time.” 

Gumm gave a sigh of relief. He had very nearly 
decided to stake his reputation upon the rosemary. After 
his brilliant remark an equally bright idea occurred to 
Mudd. He said he hadn’t finished his milk, which he had 
left in the sitting-room ; so he went off in a great hurry 
to do his duty, while his rival followed his disappearance 
with suspicious eyes, more than half afraid he was on his 
way to the kitchen to secure an unfair advantage. How- 
ever, Mudd went to the sitting-room, and as a proof that 
he was there appeared at the window to bawl insults. 
Then he turned to Halfacre, who was reading in a corner, 
and producing a hot and crumpled mass of leaves, snatched 
in desperation from trees, shrubs and plants, begged to 
be told whether the herb sage was included among them. 

“Well, what’s the thing like?” said Mudd, when 
informed that the desired leaf was not there. ” Tell us. 


About Realities and Unrealities 233 

there’s a good chap, and I ’ll have the chance of me life to 
make a fool of old Gumm. He don’t know the thingf 
from a cabbage, and to tell the truth I don’t either, I 
know parsley, and I know broad-beans and potatoes when 
I see ’em growing, but I don’t know much about t’other 
flowers. ” 

“ Sage,” muttered Halfacre wearily, stroking the hair 
from his forehead with a moist and shaking hand. ” It 
is a herb of the salvia or mint family.” 

” Bust the Latin,” Mudd broke in. ” Talk about it in 
English. ” 

‘‘It is used for flavouring meat,” said Halfacre 
languidly. ‘‘You must know that.” 

‘‘ Course I do. What’s it like?” 

‘‘It is a small plant, with greyish-green crinkled 
leaves. ” 

Mudd instantly projected himself from the window, and 
approached the group with the question, ‘‘ Ain’t the silly 
blighter found it yet?” Gumm was picking everything he 
could find, and when his rival appeared he pushed the 
bunch into his face saying, ‘‘ Smell it out of that;” but 
Mudd ignored him and gazed about intently for a small 
plant with crinkled leaves, without discovering the right 
one because Berenice was standing over it. 

‘‘ Mr. Gumm knows more than you do,” cried Miss 
Budge. ‘‘ He named an onion right at the very first 
guess. ” 

‘‘ I always have little onions for breakfast on my birth- 
day,” Gumm explained. ‘‘ They go on wishing me many 
happy returns for the rest of the day;” and at that 
moment the matron came to the door, and told them it 
was time to start out for their walks or they would have 
the doctor after them. Gumm, quite willing on that occa- 
sion to be obedient, left the cultivated patch, and as he 
did so Berenice picked a leaf of real sage and held it out 
to him saying, ‘‘ Here it is.” 

Gumm hesitated, saw the girl’s laugh, said defiantly, 
‘‘ You don’t fool me,” and rolled off followed with derisive 
mirth; while Mudd muttered to himself, ‘‘Now I’m all 
right,” for he could not believe that Berenice was offering 
the true herb, so he promptly went down and picked a 
good handful of a plant, the leaves of which he considered 


Heather 


234 

answered to the description given by Halfacre, advertising 
his sagacity with stentorian noises. 

“ He’s done you, Mr. Gumm,” cried Miss Budge 
ironically. 

“ It ain’t the first time either,” said the contented 
publican, waving his plunder airily before his rival’s face. 
” This is sage, fathead. Perhaps you’ll know it another 
time. ” 

” Silly blight,” growled Gumm. ” I knew it right 
enough, but ’twasn’t likely I was going to show you.” 

Just then Halfacre appeared about to start on his walk, 
a book as usual beneath his arm; and Miss Budge re- 
quested him to inform the publican as to what he was 
holding. 

” Borage,” said the scholar shortly, and walked on. 

“What, ain’t it sage?” shouted Mudd, confessing his 
ignorance. 

” No more than you are,” came the answer; and the 
publican went away sorrowfully, while even the sinner 
could do no more than mutter, ” What did you want to 
tell him for?” before he too succumbed and had to beg 
them to be merciful. So the cook remained unkissed, and 
was doubtless none the worse, though she did have to 
come out and pick the sage for herself. 

After these things Winnie set out for Downacombe, and 
managed to reach the lane which led down from the moor 
without being caught by Halfacre or Berenice. It was 
a pretty walk, well sheltered, and the high hedges were 
still crowned with wreaths of honeysuckle, and the spikes 
of fox-gloves, though lined with seed-pods below, were 
heavy with flower-buds at the top. The lane seemed to 
be unwilling to leave the moor. At first it went away, 
but gradually returned with cunning bends, until the 
hedges came to an end, and the rough country smiled 
again as furze, heather, fern, and granite can smile with 
the sun of summer tickling them all pleasantly ; and a 
white river running through with the sound of cymbals 
and dances, and the wind passing over with the music of 
strings and pipe. The lane kept to the fnoor as long as 
it could, and only wandered away reluctantly into the 
cultivated country when the boundary was crossed and 
there was no more wild land to cling to; and even then 


About Realities and Unrealities 235 

it would not leave the river which came over the boundary 
with it; and they two went on together into the silent 
villages, until the lane ran into the main road, and the river 
went away northwards trying to find the sea. 

What could be the matter with Downacombe? thought 
Winnie, as she began to descend the hill which was taking 
her off the moor. She could not see the village, but she 
could smell it, and was reminded unpleasantly of home. 
The air was filled with smoke. It was as if she had taken 
a hundred years on her short walk, and was coming to 
Downacombe to find it transformed into a big black town, 
filled with buzzing machinery, and mighty chimneys vomit- 
ing smoke all over the sun. Downacombe and Keyham 
could have met together and exchanged a smutty embrace. 
Where were the roses of that valley, and the hedges of 
fuchsia, and the banks of h5^drangea? Had they all disap- 
peared in a night by the trick of some magician, and had the 
red and green country become black country? There were 
smuts in the air, genuine greasy smuts, which London in 
all its glory could scarcely have surpassed, and one lighted 
upon Winnie’s nose, with the gross impertinence of all 
unreasoning objects, and joyously rolled down the steep 
place upon her light-blue frock. 

“ They are having bonfires,” murmured Winnie. “ Per- 
haps Mr. Leigh is burning Nonconformists in his back 
garden. ” 

She tripped round the last bend, coughing a little, for 
the air was horribly polluted, and saw the church, which was 
set upon a small eminence not worthy to be called a hill, 
a bump in the ground merely, as if a giant had stamped 
there and raised a swelling. The rectory was at the side, 
but invisible on account of trees. Everything seemed all 
right; Winnie saw no black and whirling vapours, but 
the pungent smell remained, and the smuts danced about 
like so many London slum-children brought down for a 
day’s romp in the country. Above Downacombe the sky 
was as blue as Winnie’s eyes; there was no sign of light- 
ning or thunderbolts; the storm, whatever it was, had 
passed. Downacombe had not been enchanted into a 
Leeds or Sheffield, and turned its hedges of fuchsia into 
smelting furnaces and its banks of foxgloves into joint- 
stock companies. 


Heather 


236 

“ Some rick has been burnt down,” said Winnie. 

Not a soul passed her on the lane. During the walk 
down from the moor she had seen only a few ponies, and 
they had not been communicative, but had browsed peace- 
fully oblivious to all local events. When she reached the 
church Winnie was confident she had guessed rightly. 
The road was littered with scraps of charred straw, some 
of them still glowing when a puff of wind passed. It did 
not occur to her that all this burnt straw might not repre- 
sent a burnt rick, but thatch, until an old man came slowly 
up the road, shaking his head in a dazed fashion and 
muttering to himself, “ ’Tis a bad day vor ’em, a cruel 
bad day vor ’em.” Then Winnie decided to walk on to 
the village. 

One more turn of the road and she was in the main 
street. It was like a fair, as there seemed to be booths 
all the way along, selling old clothes, kitchen utensils, 
furniture. That was her first impression, which lasted 
only a moment, and then the scene suggested a time of 
war; the people had been driven out of their homes by 
the enemy, and having no place to go for shelter were 
camping all down one side of the street among their shabby 
goods and household possessions. It was a sordid scene 
because the articles were so very poor, and the bright 
sunlight made them look the sorriest sort of rubbish. The 
crockery which passed rnuster inside a dark cottage was 
hideous in comparison with the stones of the road. The 
fearfully coloured pictures were more false than ever. 
Monarchs and generals with crimson cheeks, dyspeptic 
noses, and imbecile expressions grinned complacently 
from their wobbly frames at a scene of devastation. 
Women were seated in ancient arm-chairs broken and 
bulging in all their quarters, some of them with aprons 
to their eyes, others staring foolishly like their own 
pictures. The whole of one side of the village street had 
been swept clean by fire. 

Nobody took any notice of Winnie. She moved about 
among them like an invisible ghost. The street indeed was 
crowded, as farmers had driven in from the surrounding 
parishes with their families, treating the occasion as 
an excuse for a holiday, and already children were playing 
about near the smouldering ruins. Those who had been 


About Realities and Unrealities 237 

burnt out were in that stupid condition of partial con- 
sciousness which usually accompanies a disaster. Bill 
Chown had lost, not merely his wretched home, but a 
day’s work also. His little bit of furniture was stacked 
beneath the hedge, and Bessie was sitting there wonder- 
ing how she was going to finish the washing and what 
was to become of them. Bill tramped to and fro between 
the hot and jagged ruins of cob which represented what 
was left of his home and their temporary encampment 
saying, “It be more than us can du with. Us du seem 
to ha’ more than our share of the bad. ’’ The old publican, 
who had clung to his crumbling inn knowing that it was 
no use to ask for repairs, gazed at what was left of it — 
a grey wall, a rafter or two, and a vast amount of black 
refuse — and was saying something to his wife about start- 
ing again in another place. “ Us never wur spending 
volk, and us ha’ saved a bit,’’ he said cheerfully. “ It 
might ha’ been worser than it be.’’ 

“Aw, that be what some volks be alius telling,’’ ob- 
served a labourer’s wife bitterly. “ When things be as 
bad as ’em can be, they ses might be worser, my dear. 
What can be worser than to ha’ no roof to get in 
under?’’ 

“ I’ll tull’ye,’’ answered the old publican. “ Might be 
worser in many ways. Might ha’ been winter ’stead o’ 
summer. Might ha’ been rough ’stead o’ fair weather. 
Might ha’ happened in the middle o’ the night ’stead o’ 
early morning. Us might all ha’ been burnt ’stead o’ 
getting out. Us had warning tu, and us ha’ got our 
sticks out. There be a gude side as well as a bad side, 
and so long as there be a gude side I looks to ’en. ’’ 

“ I can’t see ’en,’’ said the miserable woman. “ I 
reckon us be ruined, and I’ve abin and lost a little chiney 
mug what my man bought vor I to Barum vair when us 
wur courting. ’’ 

“ Why, my dear, it be the best what could ha’ happened 
to Downacombe,’’ cried a lusty farmer from another 
parish, having no inducement to be mournful as he had 
lost nothing, and had indeed gained a day’s outing. 
“Them rotten old cottages wur fair tumbling down on 
ye. They wouldn’t ha’ lasted much longer anyhow, and 
’tis cheaper to burn ’em than ’tis to knock ’em down. 


Heather 


238 

Now the place will be built up new and gude, and yew’ll 
ha’ homes vitty to bide in.” 

” Will they?” said the postmaster as he went by. His 
own quarters were untouched, as the post-office was off the 
main street. “ It’s all rector’s property and you don’t 
know him. This is what he is,” and he slapped his 
pocket vigorously. 

‘‘ Lord love ’ye, man, of course he’ll build. They’ll mak’ 
’en,” shouted the farmer. 

” Who’s to make him?” asked the postmaster. 

“The cottages be insured, I reckon?” 

“ Ah, and for many times their value, but there’s no 
law to make the rector rebuild, and he won’t. He’ll say 
he can’t afford it.” 

“ Sure ’nuff,” agreed the old publican. “ Parson won’t 
build. That’s why I be agwaine to get out on’t. I’ve 
had enough o’ the country. I be agwaine to try the 
town.” 

“ ’Tis gude for those what can get out. Us can’t,” 
said the labourer’s wife. 

“ I reckon yew’m talking vulish,” said the excited 
farmer, who had the good fortune to live in a village which 
was owned by an old-fashioned squire. “ What about 
the insurance money?” 

“ That will go into the rector’s pocket,” said the post- 
master. “ He can’t live on six hundred a year. Perhaps 
he’ll be able to shuffle along now.” 

“ There be nigh upon fifty volk burnt out wi’out house 
or home. What be ’em to du?” the farmer shouted. 

“Us be well enough. Anything be gude vor the likes 
o’ we,” said the woman more bitterly than ever. “ Any 
old barn wi’ a bit o’ straw be all us wants, and if us gets 
tired on’t there be the House. Proper well built the House 
be. No walls coming in on ye, and no roof a tumbling, 
and beer on Christmas Day if us behaves right. If they 
wur to tear that old place down,” she went on fiercely, 
pointing upward at the big grey church-tower, “ they 
might tear the House down tu. Vor the one makes 
t’other, sure as I be a woman.” 

“ Not in our parish it don’t,” said the farmer. “ Our 
church belongs to squire, not to any o’ these old bishops, 
and he gives ’en to one o’ his sons, and us gets on like 


About Realities and Unrealities 239 

honey-bumbles in a hive. Beef at Christmas vor every 
one, and repairs done when they’m wanted, and us gives 
three cheers vor squire, and three vor parson, and three 
vor ourselves,” he said quaintly. “ If what yew’m telling 
be true, woman, all I ses is, God help poor little Downa- 
combe by the moor.” 

“ That’s what us ha’ been praying vor years,” said the 
angry woman. ” But when the fire du come it burns out 
we and lets parson bide.” 

Winnie only heard part of this. She might have heard 
more, had she not caught sight of the Twins tumbling 
down the hill like a pair of baby elephants. Evidently 
they had been told of the fire and were hurrying to inspect 
the scene. Winnie retreated from the crowd, remember- 
ing what she had come for, and walked back up the road, 
wondering if on that day of distress Leigh would be access- 
ible. She had been very much surprised to hear harsh 
things said against him. It was the old story, she sup- 
posed, of the devoted parish priest and his ungrateful 
parishioners who were constitutionally unable to speak 
good of any man. 

Out of the main street there was no one. Winnie went 
into the churchyard, then into the porch, and tried the 
door; it was unlocked, so she went in and seated herself 
behind a cool pillar to think and rest. She didn’t like 
the prospect of going to the rectory. It is easy to walk 
to the dentist’s door, but it is another matter to ring the 
bell. Winnie decided to sit there for a bit, screw up her 
courage and rehearse what she intended to say when she 
found herself alone with the man of God ; although she 
knew very well that directly they were together she would 
forget every word. Still he was such a dear man, so holy 
and kind, yet without the slightest suspicion of religious 
cant ; his manner was healing, his voice a caress. He 
would make it easy for her and help her through. 

Conscious of a sound, Winnie looked up ; then gasped, 
for a ghostly figure was crossing the chancel, slowly, 
wearily, its head down. Leigh himself with his vestments 
on, coming to serve the grey walls. Suddenly shy, the 
girl slipped behind the pillar, then peeped round it. The 
rector was in his seat, kneeling, his hands clasped, gazing 
before him. Winnie admired his character all the more. 


240 


Heather 


He attended to his duties if his people neglected theirs. 
He held daily services though nobody came to them. Not 
that any of the parishioners could have attended at that 
time of day. Their own minister gave them spiritual food 
later on, when they could attend, but that was about the 
time when a gentleman must be at his dinner-table. Leigh 
always entered the church by a door in the vestry, and 
thus he had no idea he was being watched and listened to 
by a pretty little congregation of one. 

Some time passed before he began the service. He 
looked ahead at a window, through which earlier in the 
year had come a soft sound as of an organ playing, caused 
by the bees among the lime-blossoms singing their drink- 
ing-songs. Winnie saw him shake his head and smile 
sadly. No doubt he was thinking of the fire and those 
poor homeless people, and wondering what he could do 
for them. He was praying for them. No man could do 
more — except act. Still he could not do much as he was 
not rich; and though the rectory was large and unused 
he could hardly receive any of the people there, as they 
might soil the carpets or damage the furniture, and besides 
they were unpleasant in their habits, and above all they 
belonged to a different class. No doubt the Wesleyan 
minister would look after the homeless. 

It was a letter that Leigh was thinking of before he 
began the service, one of the most disquieting letters that 
his wife had ever written. She had bobbed up in Rome, 
of all foolish places in summer time, and the fever had 
promptly laid her low. She was having doctors and 
nurses and every attention, and going on well enough, but 
the expense was terrible, and really she hadn’t got a 
farthing left. She had intended to come straight home 
instead of going on to that infernal city, but — well, it was 
those friends again, and she hardly knew how to write 
it, and she was afraid it would worry poor old Frankie 
something awful, but there it was — money was owing all 
over the shop, and she had contracted a debt of honour, 
though she was sure the brutes had swindled her ; and she 
sometimes thought she wasn’t fit to be a parson’s wife, 
though she wasn’t a bad girl, only a bit thoughtless at 
times; and directly she could travel she was coming off 
home as fast as limited mails could bring her. Only it 


About Realities and Unrealities 241 

was a case of money at once or the law-courts might have 
her. A statement of debts and probable expenses was 
included, which had made Leigh wince and wonder how 
much his first editions would fetch. 

He began to read the office, mumbling it rather, while a 
choir of fat bluebottles reeled to and fro in front of him, 
and Winnie knelt behind the pillar, afraid to open her 
mouth or make a sound. It was the fifteenth evening of 
the month, and the psalm appointed was a dreadfully end- 
less description of the wicked ways of the Israelites. 
Leigh gave out the date for the benefit of the bluebottles 
and they buzzed approvingly. He turned and began in a 
defiant voice, as if the opening words had a special mean- 
ing for him, “ Hear my law, O my people.” 

The rest of the words died away, for a certain pillar 
gaped as it were, and Winnie seemed to fall out of it with 
a face of great confusion. 

She looked across and smiled, and then there came a 
pause. It seemed ridiculous for him to be at one end of 
the church and she at the other, and that they should 
stand thus and attempt to make a religious dialogue. 
Leigh hesitated a moment, then left his seat, walked 
down the aisle and said, ” Don’t you think if you came 
and sat up near me we should get on better?” 

“All right,” said Winnie, and up she went to the 
front seat, and somehow they got through the long psalm, 
though Winnie stammered dreadfully and was almost 
crying with nervousness before it was finished. The rest 
of the service was easy, and when it was over Leigh 
joined her at once, as he did not change his vestments 
until he reached the house, and they went out together by 
the vestry door. 

“ I am so glad to see you,” he said. “ Though it was 
naughty of you to play me such a practical joke.” 

“ I didn’t,” said Winnie. “ I went into the church to 
rest, and suddenly I looked up and there you were. I 
didn’t know you had services.” 

“ Yes, twice a day, as the Prayer-book orders. But I 
do not expect to see any one. In future I shall have to 
search the church beforehand.” 

“ This dreadful fire. Your poor people,” began Winnie, 
full of sympathy, but the subject seemed to be painful to 
16 


Heather 


242 

the rector. He put up his hand in rather a fearful manner 
and only said, “ Come into the garden. You shall have 
as many roses as you can carry. One for your sex, one 
for yourself ” 

“ That only makes two,” said she. 

” Let me finish. And a hundred for your virtues.” 

“ How many for my sorrows?” asked Winnie in a low 
voice. 

” Not one. Not the smallest bud or promise of one,” 
he said firmly. 

“ But I have them,” she murmured, trying to look at 
him but without much success. 

“ That is a fancy, a little black beast of a bad dream,” 
he said lightly. ” No, no, my dear girl, we cannot allow 
it. Your roses have no thorns.” 

He opened the gate and stood aside for her to pass 
through. There was a field to the right, a pretty park- 
like place backed by thick, dark firs ; and the gate to that 
field, which communicated with the garden, stood open. 
Winnie was going in that direction when Leigh took her 
by the arm and held her back. 

” Not that way. I am superstitious sometimes. There 
is a man in your free part of the country called Gregory 
Breakback, who knows all the traditions of the soil, and 
he would tell you that strange things have been seen on 
that winding path. I don’t want you to put your foot 
upon it this evening. Over there, where you see that 
mound, a nunnery once stood.” 

” Are you afraid I shall become a nun if I go upon the 
path?” asked Winnie. 

“That could never be unless all men went blind,” he 
answered. “The path is an old churchway or lichway. ” 

Seeing her quick and questioning look, he added, ” A 
path over which a body has been carried.” 

” That’s horrid,” she said with a shiver. ” I am glad 
you stopped me.” 

“There are many paths and unfrequented lanes about 
this county which have the prefix church attached to 
them, meaning thereby that they have been made rights 
of way by the mere fact of a funeral crossing there at one 
time. I believe it is still the law that wherever a funeral 
passes, making a short cut to the church, even if it goes 


About Realities and Unrealities 243 

through a private house or garden, the path thus made 
becomes a public way for all time. Many a field pathway 
has been secured in this way. I tried to close this once, 
but public opinion was too strong for me; and I was 
further informed that if I did close it my garden would 
be filled with ghosts.” 

” I don’t want to hear any more, please. I’m not very 
strong, you know,” Winnie faltered. 

” Of course you don’t,” he said tenderly. ” I should 
not have mentioned the subject had you not turned to- 
wards the path — and that man Gregory has a trick of 
telling impossible stories in an unpleasantly truthful voice. 
Come down among the roses, Miss Winifred — I love that 
beautiful, home-sounding German name. A friend of 
peace — what could be better? Name of sweetness without 
thorns. ” 

” I told you I have them,” said Winnie. ” Lots of 
them. They prick me everywhere, and — I’ve come to tell 
you all about them,” she finished as hard as ever she. 
could. 

” You will not persuade me to believe. I shall not 
listen to you,” he said. ” Look at that moss-rose. They 
call her old-fashioned, and she is all the more beautiful for 
that. She shall be yours to begin with. Pass your finger 
over the moss and you will feel her pretty throat gently 
swallowing the first dewdrop of the evening.” 

What was he thinking about, as he raised his hands and 
bent his head to court the delicious queens of his garden? 
He looked troubled, and a flash of pain, like a twinge of 
neuralgia, crossed his face now and again ; but it was 
not the fire, nor the thought of the homeless people camp- 
ing by the wayside; but it was the memory of that letter 
which his wife-errant had written to him from Rome. 
” See,” he said, drawing a penknife from his pocket and 
paring the pink thorns away, ” how easy it is to dispose 
of your troubles. They are on the ground, and you may 
tread upon them.” 

” I can’t,” said Winnie mournfully. ” Haven’t you 
ever tried yourself to get rid of the thorns? They won’t 
go. ” 

” Then we must forget them,” he said lightly. ” Come 
down the pergola and we will wake up some buds. The 


Heather 


244 

season will soon be over and we shall be in seed-time. 
There is already a sourness in the garden and a smell of 
rot. Another month and every bush will wear scarlet. 
Here are violets already in penitential purple. Will you 
have some?” 

“ I would rather have some pink roses,” she said. 
Why was he so morbid that evening? First his super- 
stition regarding the churchway, then his eagerness to 
rob the roses of their thorns, and now his reference to the 
sad and pall-coloured violets. Winnie knew she must 
soon be going or she would be late for the rest hour ; and 
so far she had said nothing, and Leigh, instead of encourag- 
ing or trying to help, seemed inclined to turn a deaf ear 
to her confession. Her old-fashioned ideas remained, and 
she wanted to kneel down before him and tell her troubles 
properly and obtain his advice and blessing ; and then she 
could go on her way in peace. Winnie wanted to do her 
duty, but she also wanted to follow her own inclination. 
Leigh was so good and clever, and a priest to boot ; he 
could say just what her duty was, and perhaps he would 
add that the contract binding her to the clerk of Keyham 
was an immoral one, and decide that she was at liberty 
to break it and do as she willed ; that her duty, in short, 
was to follow her own inclination. Winnie had a wild 
hope that he might say so, although she dared not think 
of the consequences ; and she did not own that it would 
be quite impossible for her to break the contract unaided. 
In fact, some one would have to do it for her. A St. 
George would have to arise to slay the dragon. 

Winnie stood on the grass-path and put out a hand 
timidly. She dared not touch the rector, but his hands 
were already filled with roses, and she pinched a green 
leaf between her finger and thumb and so held him. Had 
he stepped back the leaf would have been torn olf. 

” I do really want to speak to you,” she said in a very 
frightened voice. ” I asked permission to come and see 
you, because — because ” 

” Your room was getting dark, and you wanted some 
of my flowers to brighten it,” he said soothingly. 

” No,” she said, beginning to cough with sheer nervous- 
ness. He was not helping her. He would not face the 
truth. ” You are a clergyman, and I — L want to make a 


About Realities and Unrealities 245 

sort of confession. You are so good,” she hurried on, 
her eyes roaming anywhere rather than towards his. 

Leigh made a movement, a kind of start, and for a few 
moments there was silence. He remembered there were 
certain duties connected with the clerical profession, 
although nobody seemed quite certain about them, and 
what one clerk in holy orders described as a Christian 
Sacrament another might call a pagan vice. He himself 
had not troubled much about such matters, which could not 
concern him greatly ; and as for advice, well, during his 
incumbency he had written and talked a good deal about 
rose-culture and the virtues or demerits of certain kinds 
of fertilisers ; and he had stated the law of the land on 
various occasions, and had even given advice upon the best 
and cheapest methods of fattening pigs; but the law of 
the Church, whatever that might be, he had never ex- 
pounded, except in its relation to temporal power, nor had 
he ever been asked to. 

“My dear Miss Winnie,” he said at last, “young 
girls must not get unhappy ideas into their heads.” 

“ I do really want to confess to you, Mr. Leigh,” she 
whispered. 

He laughed and stroked her hand. “It is my own 
fault. I was morbid, and my fit has communicated itself 
to you,” he said cheerily. “Confess your sins! Why, 
dear girl, you haven’t got any.” 

“No, not that exactly — my affairs — my home troubles,” 
she murmured with difficulty. 

“Ah, but you mustn’t,” he said in his kindest voice. 
“You must not confide in me, Miss Winnie. For one 
thing I could never keep a secret, and Miss Calladine, who 
is always talking about you, would come down here and 
worm it all out of me. Besides, the doctor wouldn’t like 
it. You are rather an invalid, and girls with your par- 
ticular weakness are, I know, prone to talk incautiously. 
Tell the doctor about your little home worries— a younger 
sister breaking your toys while you are away, eh. Miss 
Winnie?” he said playfully. ” The doctor is a good sort. 
He will help you much more than I can.” 

Winnie could not ask again. She had not the courage, 
for his words and manner, although most kind, were 
decided. So there was nobody to help her. She had 


Heather 


246 

come for advice and was receiving roses. She had asked 
for assistance and was getting playthings instead. No 
one would take her seriously because she was fragrant and 
pretty; and yet life was serious enough for every one, 
for pretty things and strong things alike, and was not to 
be smiled away or taken lightly or dismissed from con- 
templation with a handful of roses. 

“ May I ask you one question? I want you to be a 
clergyman for one minute,” she said, without the slightest 
bitterness, for she liked Leigh very much and was sure 
his reasons for not listening to her were good ones, and 
yet expressing herself somewhat unfortunately. “If I 
asked for a certain thing should I get it?” 

” You mean in prayer?” he said in a changed voice. 

Winnie nodded, then said, “If I prayed very hard 
indeed?” 

“ Yes,” he said. “ It must be so. Ask, and you shall 
have. That is my authority for saying so.” 

“ Then if I asked that some one might die, he would?” 
she said. 

“ Oh no. Certainly not,” he answered in rather a 
shocked voice. 

“ Then my prayer wouldn’t be answered?” 

“Not that sort of prayer. You couldn’t expect it.” 

“ Why not? People must die.” 

“ Oh, it would be impossible — and most unjust.” 

“ What sort of prayers are answered?” 

“ Really,” he said, “ I cannot tell you.” 

Winnie asked no more questions. She had already 
stopped too long, and there might be a lecture when she 
got back. She took her flowers and returned thanks 
prettily, persuaded that Leigh had done his best for her 
and there were reasons which she could not understand 
that prevented him from doing more. She turned away 
fiom sorrowful Downacombe and climbed sadly back up 
the writhing lane. By then the homeless people had dis- 
appeared from the street. Various cottages, already over- 
crowded, and rat-haunted barns had received them, and 
their household goods had been stored temporarily in the 
two chapels. When night fell and the moon came up — a 
great full moon — the village became a mournful sight 
indeed. Mediaevalism and modernism were side by side, 


About Realities and Unrealities 247 

grappling at each other in the quiet moonlight. Ruins 
on one side, crowded habitations on the other, and upon 
the road between were the discontented ones discussing 
their hard lot and the new doctrine; longing to destroy 
the old dispensation and adopt the new; talking with 
little understanding and less reason, scarcely knowing 
what they believed in or what they wanted ; but seeing 
clearly enough that a change must come. Mediaevalism 
could only mutter sleepily, “Let things bide;” while 
modernism was lifting its wild shout, “ Down with every- 
thing.” No doubt the big full moon had watched and 
heard it all before. 

That night the patients were sent out to walk in the 
moonlight. The usual bed-time was half-past-nine, but 
on this occasion an extension of time was granted. “ To 
Wheal Dream and back,” was the doctor’s order. It 
was a sort of excursion to see the old place under the most 
romantic circumstances ; the black skeleton and yawning 
mouth of the ancient mine, the former waterway shining 
with huge rounded pebbles, the deep gorge slashed in the 
side of the moor ; and on the one side the white river 
sweeping round a bend where a few black firs tossed 
their plumes and sighed all night, and owls tried to pre- 
tend they were only mechanical aeroplanes ; and on the 
other, above the ribbon of the Stannary road, the tumbling 
house of the Pethericks, and its parasite. Uncle Gifford’s 
cottage, each showing a thick yellow light, two spots of 
grease in the moonlight; and in front the house of the 
wheal, through which so much pageantry of the Forest 
had passed from Athelstan to George Brunacombe. No 
light was showing in that house, for the apostle of realism 
was resting, seated at his window drinking moonshine. 
When the others were asleep his lamp would be lighted. 
He was watching the figures drifting up the road, and 
strangely blurred in spite of the full moon, which shed 
glamour and dreamstuff rather than brightness. Suddenly 
he started and muttered, “The wind is getting up.” It 
is a trick of the Dartmoor wind to scream in a moment 
out of a body of dead calm. 

But it was not the wind. It was Gregory Breakback 
swinging down from the moor with the bar of iron upon 
his shoulder. He struck the door with it and waited. 


Heather 


248 

It was not usual for him to pass that way. He generally 
went across the heights to his ruin of Moor Gate, whist- 
ling and roaring to himself, and making people afar ofi 
say that the wind was rising. 

“ Wull, sir,” he began, directly George opened the door. 
” This be the end on^t vor the year. No more on’t till 
the Maid o’ St. Michael’s Wood sits up over the Black- 
avon a-combing her hair down to the watter and singing, 

‘ Days be getting longer. Love be growing stronger. ’ 
Yew ain’t seen she, I reckon, nor heard she neither, but 
I have, and that’s how the years ha’ gone. The young 
fellow stands one side of the Ford as ’twere, and the old 
’un be t’other, and ’tis nought but a jump across. Aw, 
sir, ’tis a gude night vor the end on’t. ” 

“A change is coming, you mean?” said George. He 
understood Gregory and his strange ways, and his trick 
of speaking in parables, as some men will after a life of 
solitude which is itself a parable. 

” Ees, ’tis the last o’ summer and vair weather. I’ve 
abin up over on Dartmoor and the dogs went past, slow 
at first, then fast. Aw, yew wouldn’t ha’ heard ’em. Yew 
can’t see into the moor same as I du. There’ll be rain 
in an hour, and then the fall, and after that the goosie’s 
feathers wull drap and drap and the ground’ll get tied 
up. ’Tis a long time since the maid wur a-singing up 
over the Blackavon. ” 

” Since spring you mean?” 

” Wull, sir, have it like that.” 

‘‘Gregory, my boy,” said George lightly, ‘‘you want 
to tell me something.” 

‘‘ ’Tis a cruel pity yew ain’t got my eyes. See that 
vuzz? There be a rabbut in mun, squatting close, afeard 
o’ my old Ben. Yew can’t see ’en but I can, vor when 
I can’t see wi’ my eyes I smulls wi’ my nose, and when I 
can’t smull wi’ my nose I hears wi’ my ears, and when I 
can’t hear wi’ my ears I pricks in my body. Don’t ye 
bide, sir. That’s what I ses. Don’t ye ever bide and 
look back and beyond, vor that be the way the years go.” 

“ Come along now. Speak plainly,” said George. 

Gregory let the end of his bar drop like a thunderbolt. 
‘‘ I speak as I wull, and no man shall answer me back,” 
he shouted. Then he brought out his hand and struck 


About Realities and Unrealities 249 

Georg-e upon the shoulder. “ Tis a vule telling to a 
vule,” he said. “ I ha’ tried all my life to stand straight, 
and I ha’ come to it wull enough to knaw what be a man 
and what bain’t. Us ha’ both done it well enough. What 
maids have us defiled, though us ain’t got women of our 
own? What walls ha’ us touched, though us ain’t got 
land? And I ha’ been a vule to look back and beyond, 
and yew’m a vule tu. Wull, sir, shake hands. Us be 
men first and vules afterwards.” 

” Thanks for the compliment,” said George dryly. 
There was no doubt about it — the moon was getting at 
the mind of that man of nature, Gregory Breakback. 

” I’ll tull ye the story,” he said, flinging the great bar 
on his shoulder as if it had been a stick. ” I come round 
this way to tull ye, vor the change be coming, sure ’nuff. 

There wur a man and he loved a maid Aw, sir, if I 

wur to stop now I’d ha’ told yew the whole history of the 
world — but he wur afeard to let she knaw, ’cause he 
reckoned he warn’t man enough vor she. A man who 
would think that be gude enough vor the best o’ women. 
No, sir, this bain’t any old story o’ Wheal Dream. ’Tis a 
story o’ St. Michael’s Wood. One day he walked wi’ she 
in the wood and ’twas spring. Yew knaw the path and 
how narrow it be, and she walked ahead and he come 
after. It got dark and the mune got up, the same old 
mune, and her got more ahead and crossed the Ford, and 
then her called ’en. He looked back and beyond ’stead 
o’ looking forward, and he saw the Maid o’ St. Michael’s 
Wood a-combing her hair down to the watter and singing, 

‘ Days be getting longer. Love be growing stronger,’ and 
he bided, sir, and watched the witch maiden. He thought 
’twas a minute, but when he got to the Ford nobody was 
there. The mune wur shining down and ’twas the same 
old mune. It wur spring, but it wasn’t the same spring. 
Vor the years had gone by while he watched the witch 
maiden, and he wur an old man when he crossed the Ford. ” 

He turned to go with his great smile, and George 
swung himself from the door with a queer sensation in 
his throat — understanding the story and the interpretation 
thereof — and called, ” Get the dreams out of your head, 
Gregory. ’ ’ 

” If any man says I be a dreamer,” came the roaring 


Heather 


250 

voice from the Stannary road, as the huge figure swept 
across it, “ I’ll break the back of ’en like a stick.” 

Gumm and Mudd did not reach the gorge. They 
squatted above the road out of sight behind some boulders, 
and smoked secretly. The publican had a cigar made of 
vile materials ; he cut it in half and they enjoyed the for- 
bidden luxury in secret. Suddenly Gumm whispered, 
” Down, you blighter. Some one’s coming.” 

There were footsteps upon the road. Two big heads 
came above the granite and perceived Halfacre striding 
along, his arms swinging like windmills, his feet kicking 
away invisible obstacles, his head thrown back. 

” What’s he doing?” whispered Mudd. ” He’s off his 
blooming nut.” 

” He’s trying to blow the moon out,” muttered Gumm. 

Apparently this was exactly what Halfacre was attempt- 
ing. He was looking up at the big moon, blowing at it 
with all his might. 

Winnie was all alone, sitting in the shadow beside the 
wheal, feeling drowsy and sad, her eyes fixed upon the 
dark windows. Why couldn’t he come down and talk to 
her? It would be a nice little act of attention and would 
pass the time quite pleasantly. But she was nobody, she 
was common, he had seen through her. Nobody would 
help her except Halfacre, and he had certainly been good 
and kind in his own strange way. He had done more for 
her than any one. Leigh would not let her confide in 
him ; George looked the other way when she spoke ; 
Halfacre made her tell him everything. How very differ- 
ent men were ! 

Somebody was blundering down the gorge like a driven 
pony. Winnie rose, calling out, afraid of being kicked or 
trodden on ; and the next moment Halfacre was with her, 
still panting and blowing. 

” You frightened me,” she said. “ Is anything the 
matter?” 

” It is all right now,” he said. ” Don’t make a sound. 
They’ll turn it off presently. It must have been half-a- 
crown dropped into the meter instead of a penny. It’s an 
awful light and hurts my head frightfully.” 

“What — this moon? Why, it’s cool and lovely,” said 
wondering Winnie. 


About Realities and Unrealities 251 

y Not so loud,” he said crossly. You’ll frighten away 
this shadow. Ah, it’s splendid here. Out there it’s awful. 
A regular great sea of it. I was plunging about and got 
out of my depth several times. I wanted to see you, 
Winnie. I’ve been looking for you. Curse my head. 
Look here, my dear. I’ve been thinking it all out, and the 
only thing will be for us to be married.” 

” Oh,” shivered Winnie. Then she tried to laugh, and 
said as crossly as she could, “You know I am engaged.” 

” It will be the best way out for you,” went on Half- 
acre, in the same excited whisper. “ We’ll go away very 
soon and be married quietly. It will have to be a very 
quiet marriage. I have my schemes — huge colossal 
schemes — and you will assist me. We will devote our- 
selves to the cause of freedom. Where are you, Winnie? 
The heat of this light is frightful. Give me your hand. 
Where is it?” 

” Oh, please do leave me alone,” she begged. 

” Don’t be so foolish. I can’t listen to such nonsense. 
I can’t do with it. Next month I hope, if the light goes 
out. That will get rid of the moon for ever. Put your 
arms round me, Winnie, for God’s sake. I was burning 
hot just now and I’m shivering all over now.” 

” I can’t marry you. You know I can’t — and I won’t,” 
she said. 

” If you go on talking such nonsense I shall be angry. 
I shall want to pick up stones and throw them about.” 
He turned upon Winnie and caught her. ” No more of 
this moonshine. Say yes at once.” 

” I can’t,” she moaned. 

” But you must, my dear. There’s no way out. ^ That 
black hole is dark and filthy, and I hear water dripping 
there. It would be terrible to fall down it. I am not 
my usual self to-night because the light is too strong, 
but I shall be well enough in the morning. You are going 
to be my wife. I’ve had that idea for some time, and 
now I know it’s going to be true.” 

“ No,” said Winnie. 

” Well, that’s another idea. Whom are you going to 
marry then?” he said in a more reasonable voice. 

” I don’t know,” she moaned miserably. 

” That dirty clerk who has bought you?” he sneered. 


252 


Heather 


“ I can’t,” she faltered. 

” One of us,” he muttered hotly. 

It did come to that. Was this the answer to her 
prayer? After all she was common because she was poor. 
Was this the way out of all her troubles? She did not 
care for Halfacre when he was sane — and just then she 
supposed he was crazed with love — but he was younger, 
much better looking, a thousand times more the gentle- 
man than Ernest Hawker. Winnie had always been of a 
yielding nature; and she was yielding then. 

“Is it he?” whispered Halfacre, throwing his head 
from side to side to avoid the poisonous moonbeams. 
Had George at his window, thinking over Gregory’s 
strange words, only known what was taking place down 
Wheal Dream ! 

“ No,” she said. 

“Then it is I.” 

Winnie said nothing, but put her hands over the two 
dimples and the distracting nose and began to cry; and 
at the same moment the moon drew a large thick cloud 
over her and apparently began to weep too. Gregory 
Breakback made no mistakes about the weather. It was 
beginning to rain, and the change had come. 


CHAPTER XV 


ABOUT NOVEMBERITIS 

During the autumn Berenice went home for a holiday. 
When she returned, reaching the sanatorium soon after 
six, which was the beginning of the rest hour, she ran 
straight up to Winnie’s room and knocked hard. Two 
voices answered, the whine of Tobias, which was familiar 
enough, and another which she had never heard before. 

“ Billy, you’re fooling,” cried the girl, as she opened 
file door. ” Why haven’t you answered a single one of 
my letters?” 

She gave a cry of dismay. A strange girl was lying 
in an invalid chair, and Tobias the fickle was on her lap. 

” I beg your pardon,” Berenice stammered. ” I 
thought Miss Shazell would be here. I suppose thv'*y 
have changed her room?” 

” I don’t know,” said the brand-new girl. ” I only 
came yesterday. Do you mean the elderly lady? But I 
think they call her Budge.” 

” Oh no. A pretty girl, with flaxen hair and dimples.” 

” There is no one here like that,” said the new girl. 
” But some have gone lately. The matron told me, and 
the doctor said he hoped I should do as well as the girl 
who had this room last.” 

Berenice was gone, and Tobias, changing his allegiance, 
pursued her down the passage to Miss Budge’s room, 
where the spinster received her with enthusiasm, and 
answered her passionate question with the news, ” My 
dear, she went three days after you, and that queer Half- 
acre man went the same day, and our coarse Twins went 
last week. The whole place has changed. I shall get off 
soon, as the winter here must be too dreadful. I’m so 
glad you’re back.” 


253 


Heather 


254 

“ Billy gone,” murmured Berenice, “ without telling 
me, without writing a line. What can she mean by it? 
What did she say?” 

“Nothing,” said Miss Budge. “Not even good-bye. 

I came down to luncheon and there was no Winnie, and 
when I asked where she was the matron said she had gone. 
So had Halfacre. ” 

“ By the same train. The devil take him,” cried Bere- 
nice passionately. “ He was always after Billy, and she, 
poor darling, was as weak as water-gruel.” 

“ There’s nothing in that,” said Miss Budge. “ Natur- 
ally they went together, as they were both going west, 
and there is only one train in the morning.” 

Berenice sat on the bed and kicked her shoe against 
the wall. “There is something in it,” she declared. 
“Why should Billy make a mystery about going? She 
knows I am fond of her, and I wrote at least six times, 
and there was never a word in reply. I have got her 
home address, and I’ll write to that. If she doesn’t 
answer I’ll get leave to go down and see her. Billy 
shan’t be ruined,” she said fiercely. 

“ My dear, you are making a lot out of nothing. Little 
Winnie can look after herself. Oh, before I forget it, 
George Brunacombe is very anxious to see you. I met 
him to-day and he asked when you would be back. He 
looks terribly ill, and he said he had been in bed for three 
days. ” 

“ Tobias, my little doggums,” murmured Berenice, 
bending over the soft brown head to hide her watery eyes. 
“ What has she done to us all? She told you everything. 
Can’t you tell me? Wag it all out, doggie dear.” 

Tobias wagged hard, but he only meant that now 
Winnie had departed he intended to follow his usual 
custom of adopting the prettiest girl in the place, and 
that person would now be Berenice, as she was more 
fascinating than the new-comer. 

“ Run ! Here comes the doctor,” cried Miss Budge. 

“ Now I shall know. I’ll make him tell me,” murmured 
Berenice, as she escaped to her room. 

She waited by the door, listening to the doctor as he 
went from one to another, and at last he came to her 
with a hearty welcome. The girl was a big handful of 


About Novemberitis 


255 

rebellion, but every one missed her when she went away. 
“ You’re looking pale and thin. Overdoing it as usual,” 
he said ; but Berenice would not talk about herself just 
then. Her question came out at once, ” Where is 
Winnie?” 

She thought he looked uncomfortable. He turned, 
closed the door, then sat down, pulled some letters out 
of his pocket and gave them to her. ” My letters,” she 
exclaimed. “Then you didn’t send them on.” 

” I don’t know her address. The little girl was rather 
an enigma,” he said. 

“You know she lives at Plymstock?” 

” I didn’t know. I could only reach her through the 
doctor who sent her to me. I am very much annoyed with 
her,” he added. 

Berenice glanced at him quickly, then dropped her eyes 
and said, ” I believe there is something called professional 
etiquette which prevents you from saying what you know 
about Winnie. I am fond of her, doctor, and I think she 
must have been worried, for she was always funny when 
I asked her questions. If she is in any trouble I want 
to help her.” 

” I know nothing about the girl,” said the doctor, some- 
what sharply, ” except one or two things told me by her 
doctor, and these of course I am not at liberty to mention. 
I had made up my mind to speak to you about her, know- 
ing you two were friendly. Miss Shazell was the most 
remarkable patient I have ever attended. Did she mention 
her affairs to you?” 

” When I tried to draw her out she always wanted to 
change the subject. I know she was engaged — and didn’t 
want the man,” Berenice said in a low voice. 

” It is only natural she should have men after her.” 

” But she wasn’t fit to be married?” said the girl 
hurriedly. 

” Certainly not. She left here with active disease. 
That is why I am so annoyed. As I pointed out to her, 
she had placed herself under my charge, and she had no 
right to go until I discharged her as fairly fit. It was 
not giving me a chance. I would never have accepted her 
had I imagined she was going to behave in this way; 
and, as I told her, I would have allowed her to remain at 


Heather 


256 

greatly reduced fees rather than she should return home 
and prove a bad advertisement for me. She declared it 
was not a matter of money, but she must go, and that 
was the end of it.” 

” Some one made her,” said Berenice. ” I know 
Winnie. She never could do anything for herself.” 

‘‘When she came here,” the doctor went on, ‘‘I did 
not think she would live more than a month. I told her 
plainly I did not undertake bad cases and could not keep 
her, but she cried and said Dartmoor was her native place, 
and begged to be allowed to stay, so I promised to give 
her a trial. From the very first day she improved in the 
most marvellous manner and never went back. She 
responded to the treatment at once, and the rapidity with 
which the symptoms diminished was extraordinary. She 
seemed to feed on the air like a plant, and was throwing- 
off the disease as if it had been nothing more than a bad 
cold. Her case supplied an argument for the efficacy of 
the open-air treatment which its opponents could not 
possibly have explained away. That is why I am angry 
with her, for now all the good will be undone. Another 
six months here would have arrested the disease; a year 
would have cured her.” 

‘‘ Entirely cured her?” 

‘‘ I believe so now. Her progress was so wonderfully 
rapid that it was reasonable to look for a complete cure.” 

‘‘What will happen now?” asked Berenice painfully. 

‘‘Oh well,” he said, with a gesture of despair, ‘‘our 
opponents will say that the treatment is expensive and 
ineffective, and only patches up a patient for a few more 
months of life.” Then he began to question the girl 
about herself; but as he was leaving the room he looked 
back and said, ‘‘ If you hear anything of her let me 
know. ” 

‘‘ What about that man Halfacre?” called Berenice. 

“ I had to send him away. He would not submit to 
discipline and was impertinent,” came the answer. 

The dreary, wind-filled house had changed. It was a 
place of gaiety no longer, but of real sorrow. There were 
some new faces, long and lean, with not much laughter on 
them ; and outside were the mists of autumn. Winnie 
had been quiet; so is the sunshine in a room, but it is 


About Novemberitis 257 

none the less pleasant for its silence. She had lighted 
up the place wonderfully. Even the Twins had left an 
agreeable memory behind them. They had been noisy 
and vulgar, still they had made mirth, and to those who 
bring laughter much may be forgiven ; especially to those 
who are in trouble while they crack their jokes. Gumm 
and Mudd had a great deal to endure, and though they 
were queer men they took Nature’s punishment like brave 
men ; and went back to their homes, to take up their 
work again, to breathe the smoke again ; and to break 
down again. What hope is there for the poor man when 
civilisation has conferred its blessings and its microbes 
upon him? He leaves the smoke to snatch a few mouth- 
fuls of air, but he must return to the smoke to make a 
living; and thus to complete his dying. For Nature never 
constructed men so that they should be smuts in a 
chimney. 

Berenice visited George the next day, and the artist 
came to the door not only more untidy than ever, but 
actually dirty. He looked as if he might not have taken 
off his old clothes for a week. The girl told him so, and 
George tried to laugh in the old way, but only succeeded 
in making a sad noise. “ Bubo and I are moulting,” he 
explained. ” We shall be better looking when we get our 
winter coats.” 

” You have been ill?” she said. 

” Taking my holidays. Twice a year I lie in bed, once 
in spring and again in autumn, from Sunday morning to 
Thursday. I make plans then for my future work, while 
my brain seems to be droning about the room like a huge 
beetle. Some people might call it being ill, but we can’t 
afford to use that expression. I keep a Bradshaw on my 
bed when I’m having my holidays, and I go to all sorts 
of places and put up at the pictures of swell hotels, and 
have a fine time running after trains and only just catch- 
ing them. I’ve just done the Lake District very 
thoroughly; didn’t miss a place, and the whole trip never 
cost a penny. Ursula Petherick supplied the necessary 
touch of comedy when she came up with my meals. 
Sometimes she was a quaint travelling companion, or the 
boots at the particular hotel I happened to be staying at 
for the moment, or a nigger minstrel on the sands. When 

17 


Heather 


258 

she came in drunk one evening and poured the soup down 
my back I imagined I was at a hydro being massaged.” 

‘‘ What a life,” Berenice murmured; and George heard, 
although he pretended he didn’t. Then she asked about 
Winnie, and George trembled. It was plain enough. He 
was weak physically, and he couldn’t prevent the move- 
ment, which was like that of an animal heaving as it dies. 
He was in pain all the time and looking about for some 
drug to deaden it. Presently he told her in simple lan- 
guage, ” I saw her the very day she went, but she didn’t 
say a word about going. She came across early, before 
breakfast, and I think she wanted to see Wheal Dream 
for the last time. She was very fond of the place.” 

“You fool, you fool,” Berenice was saying to herself. 

” I was outside. I always walk up and down our little 
road for exercise before starting work. She thanked me 
for a picture I had sent her — a sketch of the waterfall down 
the wood. She was very fond of the place. Will you 
come a few steps up the road?” 

He walked ahead and Berenice followed. ” Don’t stoop 
so,” she said. 

‘‘Was I stooping?” said George, trying to straighten 
himself. ‘‘lam getting old. I must claim the privileges. 
Bubo and Brunacombe, established a good many years, 
and not yet in bankruptcy. Look down there,” he said, 
pointing to what had been once the wall of the mine, but 
was then a rock-garden. At the summit was a pendulous 
wave of heather, living on the air apparently, unless it 
found nutriment in the stones. ‘‘ She wanted some of 
that and I know now she wanted it to take away with 
her. I went down to get it and I showed her what a lot 
of bleached flowers there were, because the bushes are so 
thick and heather will not flourish or grow pink if the 
wind cannot get to it. ‘Like me,’ she said. Do you 
hear what I’m trilling? She said, ‘Like me.’ She said 
it twice.” 

‘‘ I am listening,” said Berenice faintly. 

” She took the heather and touched my hand with her 
third finger, or it might have been the third and fourth 
together. Just there she touched it,” said simple George 
bringing up his grubby right hand. There could be no 
doubt about the exact spot, for a tiny blob of gold paint 


About Novemberitis 


259 

marked it. “ She didn’t mean to. It was an accident. 
Then she said, ‘ Thank you so very much.’ Just like that 
she said it. And then she walked away. She walked very 
slowly and looked back twice. She was very fond of 
Wheal Dream.” 

” Well, what do you think?” said Berenice impatiently 
w'hen he paused. 

‘‘ About her going? 1 suppose she wanted to be home 
again.” 

‘‘ What do you think about yourself?” she said. 
“You have just as good as told me that you worship 
her. ” 

” The old masters worshipped the Madonna and saints 
that they painted, though they gave them hideous faces 
and drew them all wrong,” said George. ” But the saints 
never troubled their heads about the old masters. I can’t 
imagine how any man could see Miss Shazell without 
worshipping her; but it is one thing to pray and another 
thing to be heard. You know what I am.” 

” What are you?” she said a little disdainfully. 

“Just what your voice implies. Tm George. That’s 
what I am. If you walk in a big town late on Saturday 
night, when folks are shopping, you will hear every few 
steps, ‘ Good-night, George. ’ Stand in the street and 
call, ‘ George,’ and every other rapscallion in the gutter 
will jump at you. I am not Michael or Raphael. I’m 
George, and my name damns me.” There was the folly 
of bitterness and failure in these words. Berenice did 
not answer him, for she was sorry. He had endured 
everything so well, herself included — she remembered it 
then — and it hurt her a little to see him aggressive under 
suffering. She had no intention of confessing her sins. 
She was not going to say she had deceived him wantonly 
and maliciously, by causing him to believe that Winnie had 
given away his gift of white heather and had made mirth 
over his secret and sacred thoughts. Winnie should not 
marry any man if she could prevent it. She wanted the 
girl for herself, to pet and love and play with, to treat as a 
beautiful animal like a bird in a cage ; she wanted to with- 
draw Winnie from her circulation among men, take her 
from her natural destiny, and appropriate her body and 
soul. It was not a very healthy passion, the desire of 


26 o 


Heather 


a maid for a maid, but it was a strong one ; better perhaps 
than devoting heart and life to the lower animals and 
making a complete lover of a dog. Berenice liked men, 
but not any more than she liked women. A handsome 
dog was in her sight more beautiful than a handsome 
man. There was nothing vile about her. Her affections 
had simply wandered away into unusual channels and her 
vision had become distorted, partly by her physical con- 
dition, partly by encouraging unnatural sympathies. 
Nature must have played some trick with her tempera- 
ment at the beginning, just as she does with potatoes, 
making one tuber forked like a man and another featured 
like a monkey. 

She wrote off at once to Winnie at the address which 
had been given her ; and the shock of the reply, which was 
nothing but her own letter returned and marked unknown, 
made her so ill that she was sent to bed for two days. 
She scribbled a few lines of information to George, adding 
a request for his assistance, though not bothering much 
about his feelings; and his answer was, “ It means only 
one thing. She gave you a wrong address because she 
did not want to be followed after she left. There is 
nothing else to say.” 

There was a good deal to think about, however. About 
that time George began to take long rambles upon the 
moor, often climbing up and down the steep and almost 
obliterated pathway above St. Michael’s Ford as if he was 
pursuing the shadows of the Perambulators who had passed 
that way once with their maps and plans ; and Bubo, 
balancing upon his perch, scratched his ear continually and 
hooted his patron goddess Minerva to witness that the 
master of himself and all the arts was taking too many 
holidays and giving so little strict attention to business 
that he, Bubo, would have seriously to contemplate the 
advisability of advertising for a new sleeping partnership. 
It was the beginning of dark days for George, as it was 
the beginning of dark days outside; for even on the 
heights it is very sombre at the peep of winter, when the 
clouds are let down to the chimney-tops, and the sun is 
wafted away to boil another world, and the day is merely 
a little grey yawn between long nights. 

During those days George hardly ever spoke. It was 


About Novemberitis 


261 

marvellous how seldom he opened his mouth. Even 
Uncle touched his hat to him in vain; but there was no 
resisting- Gregory, who could tear the restraint off any 
man like the wind snatching off a cloak. 

“ Your patch be vull o’ weeds,” he said, looking over 
the hedge at the mountainous scrap of garden. ” What 
it wants is a gude turning and terrifying to get the stroyle 
out. Tak’ a fork and terrify ’en, sir. ’Twull du ye 
more gude than tramping abroad. When a man walks 
alone he thinks of nought and his brains run down into 
his butes. ” 

George’s answer was, ” I’ve got a back-ache, and 
working in the garden makes me dizzy.” 

” Wull, sir. I’ll cure him vor ye,” said Gregory the 
always ready. ‘‘Tak’ beer and milk, and boil in ’em 
flowers and leaves o’ marigolds, and then go ye to bed 
and sweat. ’Tis an old cure and a gude ’un — and it be 
wrote down on my parchment.” 

Another evening George met Bill Chown with his 
“ flasket ” of washing, and stopped to ask how things 
were going in Downacombe. Bill seemed to be ageing 
and getting grey and dragging his feet more than he used 
to, though he was not yet fifty. 

‘‘ I’ve abin up to see my sister,” said Bill. ‘‘ Us 
thought her and John would tak’ us in, but ’em wun’t. 
No room, sir.” He paused and scratched his head, then 
gazed around upon the huge grey masses of moor. ‘‘ They 
ses ’tis a little world, sir, but he’m big when yew gets to 
work on ’en. There be room vor a plenty o’ flies on a 
bit o’ dung, but on this gurt big Dartmoor there bain’t 
room vor we. What ’em has ’em holds. Me and wife 
be in a barn to Downacombe. Us works while it be light 
and chases rats afterwards. Us be getting mazed wi’ 
work and craving vor a home. Plenty o’ country, sir, 
plenty of old walls and wheals,” said Bill, looking up 
with dark honest eyes and describing a half-circle with a 
hard brown hand, ‘‘but where be the roofs? They’m 
fallen off and nobody puts ’em up again.” 

‘‘ There’s no money,” George said, thinking of himself. 
‘‘ This is a poor country, running to waste, where we grow 
wheat for straw and have no market for grain.” 

“ Us don’t want money. Us craves common rights, 


262 


Heather 


and then us could put the roofs on vor ourselves,” said 
Bill doggedly. “ If I cuts a few reeds vor thatch I be a 
thief.” 

He walked away with the big basket on his shoulder, 
going down into the valley of dun clay, which grew roses 
and wheat for pleasure. Every season it took Bill a little 
longer to make that journey, for he was walking slower 
though he didn’t know it, and there was neither watch 
in his pocket nor clock at home to let him know that the 
days were shortening. 

George and Berenice kept apart from each other after 
that. It was easy, as the winds were getting rough and 
the girl was sent walks into deep lanes, and he was 
always upon the moor. Berenice was becoming afraid of 
the artist because she thought he suspected her of wrong- 
doing and of behaving like a rival. She was almost a man 
where Winnie was concerned, and George might have 
noticed that. In a sense she was his rival, for she had 
quite decided that when she had discovered Winnie, as 
she must some time, George should not know anything 
about it. He was not going to have the little girl with 
the dimples and circumcised nose; and there the mascu- 
line nature of her cropped up again. She was a hand- 
some brown girl, not by any means sexless, but on the 
contrary strongly bi-sexual. She had been bisected as it 
were, divided into two equal parts, one feminine, the other 
masculine, and the stronger side naturally predominated 
in matters of feeling, casting her sympathies into an ex- 
traordinary state of confusion. Thus she would glance 
at the Chowns struggling on bravely in their poverty and 
call them savages ; but if Tobias ran a thorn into his 
foot the feminine side welled up into exaggerated sympathy 
and she would suffer far more than the dog. 

Souls such as Berenice’s cannot love because they 
cannot discriminate. They see something that they want 
and hurl themselves at it, very much like a flying beetle 
charging into a wall, stunning itself by the impact. There 
is no sense, no reasoning, no self-restraint about it, be- 
cause the sufferer, although sane in other matters, is mad 
upon the one thing. It is the one-idea that kills in the 
long run. Even natural one-idea’d love may be fatal 
when it becomes an obsession; and an impatient devotion 


About Novemberitis 


263 

to religion will lead to such insane practices as pente- 
costal dances and doll-Sundays, reducing the sublime to 
the ridiculous and dismissing the Creator to the nursery. 
A diseased body often makes a diseased mind ; and even 
a harmless pastime such as rose-growing may become a 
disease in the long run. Even loneliness may turn into 
a disease which destroys the moral faculty; and the con- 
tinual high wind may breed the destroying germ of 
drunkenness. The patient must be patient, long-suffering, 
not easily provoked ; and the patient end of the whole 
matter shows a perfect work. 

That young person Tobias was the agent of destiny to 
prove Berenice’s undoing. She adored the jolly little 
fellow. All her life she had been worried by an incurable 
devotion for dogs, and other animals as well, although 
dogs were easily first. People who have an inordinate 
fondness for animals should have nothing to do with 
them, beyond trying to better their lot and reminding 
men and women that they are animals too, above the lower 
orders in some ways, below them in others ; for it is 
possible that no man has ever equalled the intelligence 
of the hardly perceptible ant. People who love animals 
are often tender-hearted towards their own species, and 
there is hardly enough endurance in the human body to 
bear the troubles and sufferings of both sides. As for 
the history of Tobias, it was short and simple like his tail, 
though much less moving. He was too young to have 
any past. He had been born in lawful wedlock, for he 
was a well-bred little gentleman, and respectability had 
been forced upon his mother. His owner was supposed 
to be the doctor, but Tobias preferred ladies, so he lived 
at the sanatorium and made love to every pretty girl who 
came there. When a particular charmer left he didn’t 
break his heart, nor did he whine and grow thin, but he 
simply took the next best girl. When he couldn’t get a 
woman he walked out with a man, but with such an air 
of condescension as to be almost insufferable. He was 
a smooth-haired fox-terrier with a brown spot on his side 
and a white marking down his face; a pretty little man 
with very dainty paws. After kissing pretty girls he 
liked running after a ball; and the third joy of his life 
was chasing rabbits. It was not quite easy to draw the 


Heather 


264 

dividing line between Tobias and a young gentleman of the 
superior species. For most two-legged young men are 
just as fond of kissing pretty girls, running after a ball, 
and chasing rabbits as four-legged Tobias could have been. 

It was the Sunday half-holiday and Berenice decided 
to spend it sulkily indoors, which disgusted Tobias be- 
cause the weather was fine and his energy was enormous. 
Presently he slipped outside, to see if there were any 
nice smells about, and there temptation came to him in 
the form of a public-house spaniel of no reputation. 
Tobias spoke to him after the manner of a pampered dog, 
and the spaniel answered him smoothly because he was 
really the devil in disguise. “ I go a-hunting,” said the 
public-house dog, with that fine disregard for the Sabbath 
which characterises sportsmen. “ I’ll go with you,” said 
Tobias ; and off they trotted, side by side, with their 
noses to the ground. This was very wrong of Tobias, 
who had been carefully brought up, and told that he must 
never speak or play with vulgar dogs, nor go forth 
unattended, and never display anti-religious feeling by 
howling when the church bell was rung. He was also 
desecrating the Sabbath by going out hunting ; and it was 
therefore absolutely necessary that some evil should befall 
him, otherwise all the elaborate fabric of punishment for 
wrong-doing, built up so carefully upon the foundations 
of Sunday-school teaching, would have toppled ignomini- 
ously to the ground. The small boy or little dog who 
goes rabbit-hunting on a Sunday afternoon is certain to 
come to a bad end; just as the poor old Hebrew gentle- 
man, who went out to pull a few sticks from some Hivite 
or Hittite hedge, was foredoomed to be caught into the 
moon, dog, sticks and all, and exposed there for ever 
like a bad negative. The spaniel was perfectly well aware 
that he was leading Tobias astray; and he was glad 
because of his diabolic nature. He was himself a lewd 
fellow of the baser sort, and he had no tenderness for 
little gentlemen who were pampered and cutlet-fed, and 
slept upon cushions, and had brush and combs for their 
toilet and fine collars to deck themselves withal. ” Us will 
go to the copse and catch conies,” said the spaniel, 
unwittingly proclaiming his criminal tendencies ; for the 
law is unable to recognise a rabbit by that name. 


About Novemberitis 265 

“ IVe been told never to go into the copse,” said 
Tobias, with a look of shame upon his brown face. 

” Bide here then,” said the coarse-minded spaniel, who 
had already been convicted of poaching times without 
number. “ Proper little kiss-mammy yew be.” 

Tobias was not going to stand that. He could hunt 
rabbits quite as well as the spaniel, and he intended to 
prove it. So he went off, with his head up to catch all 
the smells, merely remarking that he must get back in 
time for tea, as he always had a saucer of milk and 
assorted cakes then, and if he didn’t turn up for this light 
refreshment a fundamental change in the orbit of the earth 
would probably occur. The spaniel sneered again ; a 
biscuit like a tile and a sniff of hot rum were more in his 
line. 

” I’ve been told there are traps in the copse,” said 
Tobias, speaking prettily as his numerous mistresses had 
taught him, and annoying the public-house gentleman, 
who knew nothing but dialect. 

‘‘ Bain’t none now,” he said gruffly; but the spaniel 
lied unto Tobias. 

A fire had been granted in the sitting-room of the 
sanatorium that afternoon, and Miss Budge was making 
the most of it and sprawling in front of it as if she had 
been the planet Mercury beside the sun. Berenice sat 
afar off, reading or letting her eyes wander across the 
moor, thinking sometimes of Winnie but hardly ever 
speaking. At last the tea-table appeared. Miss Budge 
awoke and said she was shivering on one side and baked 
on the other, and at the same moment Berenice became 
conscious that she was shivering all over. It was a cold 
wind and blowing straight into the room. She did not 
like the fire, as the sight and warmth of it made her feel 
sick, but she came across towards a sheltered corner; and 
then her eyes fell upon a ball lying upon the carpet like 
a lost pleiad. ” Where’s Tobias?” she said quickly. 

Miss Budge neither knew nor cared ; she said as much 
and got sworn at. Then Berenice went about the house, 
calling and whistling, but there was no cheerful whimper, 
no pattering of small feet to answer her. The others 
assembled in the sitting-room and Berenice came and 
catechised them, but their answers were unsatisfactory. 


266 


Heather 


Tobias had not been seen. It was getting dark, the wind 
was rising, rain was beginning to splash in dreary 
autumnal fashion, and Berenice felt suddenly fearfully ill. 
She went out into the wild weather just as she was, only 
conscious that the light was nearly gone, that Tobias 
was lost, and the night would be long and very dark. 

She saw something advancing along the narrow road 
like a monstrous crab with ungainly movements. She 
went towards it, hoping it might be a man, and so it was, 
though it seemed to consist chiefly of large sticks and 
shufflings. It was Uncle Gifford going home from chapel 
with two tottering legs and the same number of firm ash- 
plants ; and he was talking to himself of bruised reeds 
and smoking flax and wondering what they meant. 

“ Have you seen Tobias?” Berenice cried at once, 
bringing the somewhat erratic machinery which controlled 
Uncle’s movements to a standstill. He tried to shake his 
head, but his neck was too stiff ; so he touched his hat 
respectfully and wished the young lady good-evening* 
“Us be agwaine to have a thick night,” he explained, 
not having understood her question. 

“ He went out early in the afternoon and hasn’t come 
home,” the girl went on. 

“ Please?” said Uncle gently. 

“ My little dog. He’s lost,” she said, her voice 
breaking. 

Uncle was a tender old soul, but to him an animal was 
an animal. A cow was a creature to give milk, and to be 
knocked on the head for beef when she couldn’t give 
any more. As for a dog, it was right that he should 
die like one. Uncle did not know why the young lady 
was so agitated. All he could do was to explain the 
matter. It was simple enough. The dog had been caught 
in a trap. There was nothing unusual in that. Uncle 
had known a dog to stand in a trap for three days until 
his foot had been cut right off ; but Berenice only screamed 
when he went into details. 

“ Are they trapping?” she gasped. 

“ Ees, it be trapping-time,” said Uncle, pleased to give 
information. “ If yew goes down under yew’ll hear the 
rabbuts screaming.” 

A kinder man than Uncle did not live, and yet his idea 


About Novemberitis 


267 

of suffering- was a quaint one. He regarded it as some- 
thing necessary, not as anything preventible. Men had 
to endure a great deal, and they felt it badly, but had 
to bear up somehow. Animals did not count. Uncle 
had been a mole-catcher for many years. He did not 
suppose that the moles ever suffered when he trapped 
them, any more than a leaf suffers when a caterpillar 
nibbles it. Rabbits screamed when they were in traps 
just as bees hummed while they were flying about. It 
was their nature; but animals had nothing whatever to do 
with such matters as consciousness and pain. 

From the public-house yard proceeded yelps and howls 
of dire distress ; not much of penitence perhaps, but 
rather curses and threatenings. Berenice hurried there, 
and found the landlord flogging the spaniel, who had just 
returned wet and muddy, while his small son attended 
with a lighted lantern. The devil may know how to 
escape snares, but he gets his deserts sometimes, although 
no punishment can reform him. The spaniel would be 
just as wicked on Monday though he was being flogged 
on Sunday. 

“ I’ll learn ye,” shouted the publican. ” Proper old 
poaching toad yew be.” The course of instruction was 
continued with a cart-whip. 

” Ees, miss, he went off wi’ your little dog,” said the 
small boy. ” He’m just a-come home. Likely yours ha’ 
gone home tu. ” 

Berenice hurried back to the sanatorium, but Tobias 
was not there. She could not stay indoors, although it 
was quite dark by then, and the rain was blowing about 
in large stinging drops. Out she went again, in defiance 
of authority, and questioned every villager she met as to 
where the traps were set. Apparently they were everyr 
where. The hedges bristled with them. It was almost 
impossible for an animal to set its foot anywhere without 
getting an iron jaw clamped upon it. The traps were in 
every direction, and she was assured that nothing could 
be done until the morning. A night in a trap wouldn’t 
kill any dog, she was told. Most of the men spoke as 
if they were persuaded it would benefit the animal’s health 
considerably. Berenice went to the public-house and 
borrowed the lantern. She tried to borrow the small boy 


268 


Heather 


too, and offered him money if he would go with her, but 
the boy was incorruptible. He was due at the evening 
service in the chapel, to sit beside a small girl and squeeze 
and pinch her between devotional intervals ; which was 
something higher and nobler than tramping muddy fields 
in the wind and rain. Young as he was, he had his soul 
to think of ; and that could not possibly be supplied with 
spiritual food by desecrating the Sunday evening search- 
ing for rabbit-traps. 

Berenice went off by herself, coughing and gasping for 
breath because she would hurry so. She was acting fool- 
ishly, but could not control herself. She was feeling 
so ill she could hardly think coherently ; and at last she 
had a wild idea she was searching for Winnie, who was 
caught somehow and was screaming for some one to 
come and release her. Every sound made an echo of 
Winnie’s plaintive voice; and that windy lane just off the 
moor was full of sounds. Berenice tried to call out, but 
had no voice. The darkness, the wind and rain, the 
decaying autumn, increased her horror. Winnie or 
Tobias, it was all one just then. She loved them both 
— she didn’t know which she loved the most. Whichever 
was in the trap ; that was the one. She seemed to see pink- 
and-white Winnie with dainty white dog’s paws struggling 
in a mass of machinery which was moving horribly, tear- 
ing her up. Berenice had to stop and lean against a 
hedge coughing terribly, feeling hardly conscious and in 
the grip of a nightmare. Around her was a greasy little 
hell of yellow light cast by the lantern, and in this light 
were great gadfly spots of sleet. Her hair was sopping 
and her shoes were two shapeless lumps of clay. 

At last she came out upon the edge of the copse. Down 
below was a mess of mossy bog, and she did not know 
the way through. She realised then the power of the 
night and the tyranny of darkness. Nothing could be 
done until the morning ; and in the meantime all suffering 
lay hidden under that heavy pall of black wind and silvery 
sleet — but not quite all. The wind dropped, paused to 
rest itself as it were, and that moment the night was filled 
with strange noises of appeal. Only a few wet and use- 
less fields divided the boggy copse from the church ; and 
in the silence sounds came from the church. Up from 


About Novemberitis 269 

the copse came other sounds, and the two met upon the 
top of the hill. 

From the church came faintly the wheezy leaking music 
of the harmonium, trying to blow out a hymn. All around 
were the short sharp screams of tortured rabbits. It 
made a strange mixture of sounds ; both making an appeal 
for mercy; one asking for what it would not render to 
others, the other demanding only justice. It was a 
question which sound carried the furthest; which was 
most likely to receive attention in the court of final 
appeal. 

The wind, which can be merciful sometimes, swept 
down again from the tors and put everything else to 
silence. The night seemed to grow rougher than ever, 
and Berenice dragged herself back to the lane, mad to do 
something, but helpless to act, Every time her feet 
touched ground they seemed to try and take root there. 
Then she thought of George. He would do something 
if she could get across to Wheal Dream, not for her sake 
perhaps, as she had never done him any good, but for the 
sake of Tobias, whom Winnie had petted. She reached 
the road, dragged herself on, and presently a long shaft 
of light reached out from the side of the moor like the 
gleam of a lighthouse striking seawards, and she walked 
up the light conscious of little else until she reached the 
door. 

George was in, working as usual, though more me- 
chanically because his mind was not there and he did not 
know where it was. He appeared at the door half 
dressed, his coat fastened round him with a strap as all 
the buttons were absent, a woollen scarf taking the place 
of collar, his toes protruding like tubers from broken 
canvas shoes. 

“ Come along in, neighbour,” he said huskily. “ Leave 
the hat and lantern behind the door. Walk in and we’ll 
tell before the fire;” but when the light wobbled about, 
like the will-o’-the-wisp upon a bog, George trembled, 
for he saw a frocked figure with two muddy shoes be- 
neath, and he muttered something which roused Berenice 
and made her almost hate him. It was obvious that he 
was thinking of nothing but Winnie, and the vision of 
any girl at his gate made him dream. 


Heather 


270 

“ 1 thought at first you were Uncle,” George said, 
tugging the scarf round his neck as if he desired to throttle 
himself. ” Then when the light moved and I saw your 

dress ” He broke off, scrubbing his beard with the 

back of his hand. ” This is an awful place for dreams,” 
he muttered. ” My windows open upon the wheal, and 
as I lie at night the dreams pour out of the shaft like 
cinders from a volcano.” 

” My dog,” said Berenice faintly. ” He’s in a trap. 
Tearing his pretty self to death.” 

” What, the little man who trots across here and plays 
with me? Her dog,” he added, not meaning Berenice 
to hear; but she did, and snapped at him — 

” I shared him with her, but she never loved him half 
as much as I do.” 

George was fond of animals, more so than most men; 
but he did not comprehend the overwhelming passion 
which sets a certain dog or cat much above all other 
mortals under heaven. 

‘‘You have been about looking for him?” he said. 

‘‘ Until I’m nearly dead. I must find him or I shall go 
mad in the night.” 

‘‘ Come in and sit down a bit.” 

‘‘ I should never get up again. I have been in the 
copse. It’s a place of torture, a boggy inferno. Screams 
everywhere, but I couldn’t hear my poor pet.” 

‘‘ He’s all right. He’s not in a trap,” said George. 
‘‘ He’s paying a round of calls.” 

‘‘ He must be. He never stays out after dark. Think 
of him. Struggling all the time, with his dear little foot 
in one of those damnable things — you know what a dainty 
little white foot it is. Covered with blood now,” she 
cried hysterically. ‘‘ His pretty brown face all matted 
with rain, and his beautiful eyes filled with tears,” she 
went on. ‘‘ The torture is getting worse every minute, 
and he can’t understand. He doesn’t know what he has 
done to deserve it. He has always been petted, and that 
makes it harder for him. Winnie was fond of him. She 
often used to kiss him between the eyes, and call him 
her dear thing, and I’ve often seen him snuggling against 
her, with his nose under her arm, and he was always 
smelling of her ” 


About Novemberitis 


271 


“ Stop it,” said George rudely and roughly. “You 
can’t stand this sort of thing. I can’t either. There’s a 
lust for slaughter in November because it’s the month of 
death and general damnation. I shall die in November; 
the next one likely enough. Well, I’m going out to look 
for the poor little chap, though I might as well toss a 
pin into Wheal Dream, then go and search for it. But 
you have spoilt my peace for to-night.” 

He huddled on a shocking old macintosh, turned down 
his lamp, and came out with her. Berenice was crying 
by this time out of weakness, and she had to accept his 
arm to help herself along. 

” Bear it,” said George, blowing out his cheeks and 
pretending not to care. ” Suffering is good for us. 
Must be, or we shouldn’t get such a lot of it. If you 
can’t bear it patiently bear it aggressively. That’s my 
way — accept the trouble because you must, curse at it, 
and go on trying. But I’m no good. You girls can 
endure things better than men. You bend and let the 
wind go over you. We try to stand stiff and get our 
backbones twisted. Here you are. Go in and lie down.” 

” I shall take my morphia,” she whispered. Each 
patient was entrusted with a little morphia for use in an 
emergency. 

” Best thing perhaps,” George said. ” Oblivion is the 
only treatment for a raw heart.” 

He went on into the darkness, the plaything of wind and 
rain, muttering in a morbid fashion, ” We’re going down. 
We shall soon be bankrupts. Bubo and Brunacombe, 
born and instituted on a Friday. We’re all bankrupt in 
November. Poor little Bubo ! He lost a leg in his 
infancy, and he’ll soon lose his partnership, for our Mr. 
Brunacombe is getting into deep water.” 

That was how the long autumnal night began. Ages 
passed before daylight returned, and during the inter- 
vening period Berenice endured more than she ever cared 
to think about afterwards. It was foolish perhaps, but 
people are as they are made, and when the temperament 
says ” Down, mind,” it is no use resisting. She took 
her morphia, but it refused to act; so she walked about 
the room, moaning and beating her hands together. 
Every gust of wind, every sweep of rain across her bed. 


Heather 


272 

made her howl. She could not lie still for more than a 
few moments. Her pillow was like a bed of nettles. She 
stared at her watch, the hands of which never moved, 
and sometimes she murmured, “If it was only all over. 
If he was only dead I could stand it.” She suffered prob- 
ably far more than the dog. She seemed to feel his 
every movement a thousand 'times intensified, and the pain 
of it went through her like a knife. Like the dog, she 
tugged to get free and could not; and every effort weak- 
ened her more. The night was growing steadily wilder 
and the darkness more unearthly. 

At last she could endure no more of it. She dressed 
and went silently down-stairs. There was nobody to pre- 
vent her from leaving the house, so she did so, feeling 
better when she was outside and in motion. She walked 
to Wheal Dream, but hesitated when she got to the door 
of the mine house. It was past midnight, and she could 
not knock and bring George out. There was no light in 
the house, but Bubo was hooting in cheerful fashion and 
his wild brethren of the tors answered him. Berenice 
felt her way to the gate, which led from the stannary 
road down into the wheal, where she had sat with Winnie 
and the poor little girl had lied to her. The darkness was 
not so intense that she couldn’t see the black and ancient 
timbers. Step by step she felt her way down, trying to 
think of anything except the one thing which would not 
be ignored. She got into the wheal, sheltered herself 
from the rain beneath the old timbers, and listened to the 
spadiard’s ghost digging patiently far below. It was only 
the water dripping with a resounding echo, but it sounded 
like a spade; and there she sat moaning and shivering, 
and wondering if she was ever going to live through the 
night. 

The spirit of Wheal Dream was merciful, or perhaps 
the drug that she had swallowed woke up and put her to 
sleep ; anyhow the girl had not been there long before she 
was insensible. It was a restless sleep, full of jumping 
hobgoblins and cruel elves practising stannary-like tor- 
ments upon prisoners ; but it was unconsciousness, which 
was the only thing she asked for. She slept upon the 
dripping ferns and spongy mosses, and the unhappy hours 
went silently away. 


About Novemberitis 


273 

It was scarcely light when Father Chown passed down 
and roused her with distressing and grave-qualifying 
noises. All through the summer Father had been worried 
by a long bramble, which stretched across the path and 
hooked his shaky legs every time he went down to bring 
the cow up. Not that he ever did, for the cow was 
sensible enough to come without being invited, but Father 
liked to think he was still working. He would entice a 
small stick into the linhay and tap at it harmlessly with 
a chopper the whole morning ; and then he would toddle 
into the house and say it would be a good thing for the 
country if young men possessed wood-hewing powers 
equal to his. Every day for weeks Father had sworn 
vengeance upon that spiny rope which steadfastly impeded 
his progress. He moved at about the same rate as the 
minute hand of a large clock, so a very little thing 
brought him to a standstill. He often stood near the 
bramble and reasoned out the whole matter; it had caught 
him just as it had done yesterday ; he would come that 
way to-morrow and it would catch him again ; but if he 
cut it off it would cease from troubling. There seemed 
no doubt about that, so Father propped himself up and 
worried his hand slowly into his pocket, which took him 
a long time, and then he found it was the wrong pocket 
and his knife was in the other. He propped himself up 
on the east side and tried again; but when he had the 
knife he couldn’t open it, and nobody was near to do it 
for him; and if it had been opened the blade was so 
blunt that his weak wrist could never have forced it 
through the tough obstacle. Perhaps some other instru- 
ment would be more suitable. Father could only poke 
at the enemy with his stick, and abuse it as if it had 
been a Christian. But the indifferent bramble blossomed 
and brought forth fruit, and its leaves turned from green 
to scarlet, and it hooked Father every day with its long 
curved thorns. 

Father had spent the greater part of Sunday thinking 
blasphemously about the bramble, because he thought it 
might outlive him and go on tearing the legs of the new 
generation after he had taken his place among the 
heavenly choristers, though it was not easy to imagine 
Father in such a position, and he would soon have made 
18 


Heather 


274 

his white robes fearfully dirty. He had gone to bed at 
his usual early hour and the bramble caught at him in 
his sleep, until it was shown him in a dream what he 
ought to do. He must rise early, so that there should be 
plenty of time, take the chopper, shuffle down the path, 
and attack the enemy at its root. It might not be con- 
quered in one day, nor yet in two; but Monday morning 
should see bruises, and Tuesday night perchance a fatal 
injury; and on Wednesday it would wither away. Father 
arose before it was day, dressed himself by putting on 
his boots, the other things being already in position, 
finished a jug of milk in which various insects had 
drowned themselves during the night, and shuffled out. 
He reached the linhay safely after an invigorating tramp 
of ten yards, grasped the chopper, and then sat down 
on the wood-pile because more reasoning was required. 
How was he to carry the chopper when in motion ? Both 
hands would be occupied with those necessary forelegs, 
his sticks. There were certainly side pockets to his coat, 
but that garment was like a work of genius, not for an 
age but for all time, and anything placed in those pockets 
would a moment later strike the ground or one of his 
boots. He could not carry the chopper in his mouth 
because he had no teeth ; he could not kick it along in 
front of him. Father had to confess that the problem was 
too great for him. The bramble was going to beat him 
after all. 

Just then he noticed something on his right boot. He 
always looked at his right boot when any special effort 
of the intellect was required ; there was no inspiration 
to be obtained from the left boot. He bent down and 
observed an ant hard at work crossing the great muddy 
plateau of leather, dragging a tiny stalk behind it. How 
the insect managed this Father neither knew nor cared, 
but it gave him the idea which he would never have hit 
upon for himself. He could follow the example of the 
ant and drag the chopper behind him. Father lowered 
his thumb and with vast contempt for noxious insects 
smeared the poor ant out of existence ; then he took a 
piece of rope, tied one end round the chopper, the other 
about his leg, and shuffled forth rejoicing. Father was 
almost frightened at his own sagacity. 


About Novemberitis 275 

Berenice started and shivered; she was horribly cold, 
and the sick feeling of despair came back with con- 
sciousness. Well, it would be all over, Tobias had 
finished his agony and was dead. He could not have 
endured through that interminable night. She imagined 
him lying on his side, wet, cold and stiff, his eyes glazed ; 
and she felt as if the world had departed from her. Not 
the death of any human being would have distressed her 
so much. Just then she could have spared Winnie rather 
than Tobias. She dragged herself out of the wheal, 
passed Father, alarming him dreadfully and leaving him 
staring in amazement long after she had disappeared, 
and went up on the moor thankful for the light, though 
it was nothing better than a mass of rolling mist whitened 
as a pretence of daylight. 

“ Thikky place be more like London getting every day,” 
observed Father, though he had never been much nearer 
London than Wheal Dream, and was therefore hardly 
justified in supposing that ladies of the metropolis passed 
the night in old mines, and rose from them suddenly at 
the dawn to startle old gentlemen who might be abolish- 
ing prickly shrubs in important thoroughfares. Not that 
Father was interfering with the vital principle of the 
bramble. He was tapping away with the chopper at 
inoffensive ferns and thick mosses ; presently he struck a 
block of granite with a fine jarring effect and chuckled 
manfully. A few more like that and his old enemy would 
never bring forth blackberries again. 

As Berenice ascended she met George. He was coming 
out of the wreaths of mist like a man escaping from a 
burning house, hurrying along with his head down, 
muttering as usual and hardly looking where he went. 
He could have walked there with his eyes shut, knowing 
every stone and furze-bush, and the shape of each, and 
the exact distance from one to another. He did not see 
Berenice until he was up with her, and she said nothing, 
but only looked at him in a wounded sort of way. There 
was so much mist between them that each was a ghostly 
figure to the other. George opened his mouth to ask 
how she dared to be abroad at that unearthly hour, but 
he only croaked dismally. He coughed, slapped his chest, 
and his voice came back. ‘‘ I’ve been in and out all 


Heather 


276 

night. Lighting my lamp, blowing it out again, tumbling 
on my bed, getting the horrors and turning out for another 
tramp. One bad night is worse than a score of bad 
days ; especially when the wind is up and the darkness 
has a slimy feel.” 

” Have you nothing to tell me?” asked the miserable 

” You won’t believe it, but the sun is shining back 
over. It will be on us presently. This mist is running 
off like a tide. A touch of sunshine now is as good as 
a legacy. I feel almost successful on a fine day.” 

” I don’t want the sun. I want my darling little dog,” 
said Berenice. 

” The little devil,” said George tenderly. ” He and 
Bubo have been playing the deuce with me. First you 
came and upset me by telling me about Tobias, and then 
Bubo came and rubbed it in by reminding me it was a 
terrible thing to lose a leg; and having an imagination 
and bad health I sweated and got sick. These creatures 
are a curse to us. I put a piece of string on Bubo’s 
perch as a hint that he might hang himself, but he w'on’t. 
He’ll outlive me and find himself on the parish.” 

‘‘We can do something now that the light is back. 

We can go along every hedge ” Berenice began, but 

George interrupted her gently — 

‘‘ Tobias is all right. Like us, he’s had a bad night, 
but it’s over now.” 

” Then you do know something?” 

‘‘ Last night after you left me I climbed up to Moor 
Gate where Gregory lives. You know him, the singing 
giant with the crowbar. He wasn’t in, so I waited about 
for him. It was Sunday night, when bachelors are out 
with women, and Gregory is courting a woman round and 
about Downacot. He must be courting her seriously, as 
he wasn’t home till midnight. I told him about Tobias, 
and he told Ben, his big sheep-dog. Ben possesses super- 
natural qualities. Gregory talks to him with his hands 
and the dog interprets the signs with his eyes. Here’s 
the sun ! Didn’t I tell you good-luck was coming by way 
of bogland?” 

Berenice sat upon a boulder and looked wretched. ‘‘ I 
know he’s dead. I don’t care about anything,” she said. 


About Novemberitis 


277 

“ First Winnie, then my dog-gie, and now my temperature 
is up to bursting-point. There’s one thing,” she mur- 
mured, ” I’m too ill to be lectured.” 

That was true enough. Usually her fine brown face 
seemed healthy enough to defy all diseases, but there 
was a pallor upon it then, and for the first time George 
saw that apparently transparent and spiritual expression 
which is so attractive and so ominous. She was dirty at 
last, as dirty as himself, yet it was all clean enough, 
the clay and copper of the wheal, the mud of the copse, 
the brown peat of the moor. She had always been so 
fresh and clean that she frightened him. Now she was 
in some sympathy with him. Suffering like penitence 
brings every one down to dust and ashes. What man 
cares if there is mud upon his trousers when he staggers 
in at the cemetery gate? George didn’t like her eyes; 
they were too dark and there was unnatural energy in 
them. 

” I want to get well,” she was saying. ” I must go 
and find Winnie. I shall get well if Tobias is still alive.” 

George sat down nearly opposite her. He was ex- 
hausted too and he wanted to feel the glad sun and soak 
it in. Berenice did not consider him, or she must have 
noticed that his features which the hair did not cover 
were almost as white as Meldon marble, and his face 
had that same spiritual transparency, and his clothes hung 
about him more loosely than they had done in summer 
time. He too was a fragile growth tormented with 
disease ; and yet the wonderful roots of both struck down 
into the depths of eternity, and would endure somehow 
and bring forth new growths in spite of the elements 
which can only shake off the blossoms but cannot destroy 
the root. 

It was ridiculous perhaps that so much fuss should be 
made about a dog. But there was something more than 
the fact of a petted animal in misery. There was his 
sacred character to consider. He had slept on Winnie’s 
bed and been fondled in her arms and kissed by her very 
often. Even the most hardened unbeliever would not wil- 
fully kick the thigh-bone of a martyr into the gutter, if 
he knew it was a genuine article, and had not, like most 
such relics, been supplied by the nearest rag and bone 


Heather 


278 

shop. He would respect the memory of a brave soul ; 
while the true believer would snatch up the bone and 
desire to eat it. Berenice and George were true believers 
in the sense that they both loved Winnie. Berenice with 
her abnormal devotion for animals, which amounted to a 
religion, would have suffered just as much over the fate 
of Tobias had Winnie never existed ; but George would 
assuredly not have spent a rambling night had the little 
girl with the original nose been kept out of his life. 

“ You ought to be getting back,” he said. 

“To sit and stuff myself, I suppose,” she answered. 
“ I loathe the place,” she went on with the utmost bitter- 
ness. ” The house is haunted by Winnie. So is every 
walk. Whenever I go over Chapel Ford I see her sitting 
on the stones, listening to — to — well, to you,” she said 
defiantly. ” You seemed to interest her more than I 
could. How she loved the moor ! She was always want- 
ing to climb to the highest tor, throw her arms round the 
topmost rock and hold on. How she must have howded 
when she went away ! Heavens ! I hate the moor. ’ ’ 

” November,” said George quietly. ” Put it all down 
to November. April settles the debt, though not always.” 

” If you hear of her you’ll let me know? Promise 
me,” she said. 

George stiffened at once. He was chilly and wretched, 
and in that mood he wanted to pretend that Winnie was 
nothing. ” How should I hear?” he said roughly. 
“ She doesn’t write to strangers, least of all to elderly, 
grey-bearded men, who live up on the tors with the owls, 
and will soon be burrowing into a hole to perdition. I 
shall never see her again,” cried George, blinking his 
eyes like a great baby, ” and a jolly good thing too. Well, 
I’m going home — to my workshop. I’ve had the devil 
of a night, and now I’m going to paint till all’s blue. 
Don’t look at me like that. I’m all right except for a 
sharp touch of November. Bubo and I have taken the 
vows of poverty and celibacy. We have our little cloister 
down below, and I’m going to work there for a few 
more days.” 

“What are you going to do?” asked Berenice, won- 
dering at the strangeness of his manner. 

“ Work,” said George, flinging out his tired hands. 


About Novemberitis 279 

“ It’s the only house of life which gives the mind rest. 
Work! it’s the only wayside inn that is never full. I’m 
going to drive these ten little pen and brush carrying 
acolytes as they were never driven before. I’m going to 
look the other way when I see a strange face. You 
don’t go mad while you work, but if you keep the hands 
in your pockets you’ll find a piece of insanity there one 
day. I’m going to paint my windows green and imagine 
it is April. A fig for all women. It’s the eternal burn- 
ing and longing which make us rotten ; and the fire is 
false after all. Bubo has taught me something. You 
can’t look into an owl’s cold eyes for a few years without 
being ashamed of blundering like a moth after the first 
bit of fire that burns across your path. An owl is 
nearer godliness than we are, though he does eat his own 
fleas. ” 

“A fig for Winnie too?” suggested Berenice with some 
heat. 

” That,” cried poor George, snapping his fingers, 
although he broke his heart for it afterwards. ” She 
laughed at me. She mocked me — the poor devil that 
lived and worked in the dirty old mine house.” 

‘‘ When?” cried Berenice, glad but wondering. 

” Why, you told me. Those pieces of paper which I 
had scribbled on and the wind had blown into the wheal. 
Didn’t she find them, read what I had written to you all 
and set you laughing at the poor lonely booby who was 
asking the Life that made him to let him have company? 
Pray 1 I tell you I ’ve done it. I would go down twice a 
day on the boards, and shut my eyes so that I shouldn’t 
see Bubo winking at me, and I’d say like any little fool 
of a school-child, ‘ God, let me make my living. That’s 
all. I don’t want fame and I don’t want riches. I only 
want a living and I’m willing to work twelve hours a day 
for it.’ That was my prayer. What was the answer? 
Why, a Jew who owed me twenty pounds went bankrupt 
rather than pay, and is now doing business under his 
wife’s name, and another cheated me a bit worse than 
usual. What did I get in return for my score of long 
days and a dozen headaches? I gave up the praying. I 
couldn’t afford it.” 

‘‘ I ought to tell him,” said Berenice to herself, hot 


28 o 


Heather 


and shivering. “These little lies grow such long roots. 
But he might go after her, and she loves him, and he 
shan’t have her. Anyhow he couldn’t, so what does it 
matter?’’ She was afraid also to tell him the truth. He 
might have lost all control over himself. Much solitude 
makes a man queer company. 

“You don’t want Winnie now?’’ was what she said. 

“ I want no one. I shan’t live much longer ’’ 

“ November again,’’ she broke in, with a smile that 
was intended to set, not him, but herself at ease. 

“ Whatever the time I’ll go on working — from Novem- 
ber to nowhere. The rest of the time I shall paint ; 
nothing else. I’ve been a dabbler in a dozen crafts, 
thorough at none. Now I’ll stick to the one. I’ve got 
a few pictures in my mind — not for the Jews or money, 
but for myself. And when they are done we go into 
liquidation. Bubo and Brunacombe, manufacturers. 
Assets nil.’’ 

George began to move away, dragging his great boots ; 
and the girl who would have been a man followed him 
with her eyes. After all why should she speak? Every 
one tells lies to their own advantage. She knew that 
the shrine of St. Winifred was not demolished. The altar 
was as neatly kept as ever, the tapers were burning with 
a pleasant odour, and the daily services were going on the 
same as usual. The pretty saint, like all others more 
unreal, was unattainable. George was not to have 
her. 

“ I will find Winnie,’’ said she wildly. George could 
not hear. “ I will give her a man’s love and a better love 
than any man could give. I would send my blood into 
her veins to show how much I love her. ’ ’ 

Then George came back limping, and Berenice noticed 
for the first time that his neck was all bloody. He had 
been through hedges in the night. 

“ Tobias is safe. He is coming in Gregory’s arms,” 
he said quietly. 

The little hill upon which they had met was the least 
of all the tors, and only called one because it possessed 
a whale-shaped outcrop of black rock; and it rose be- 
tween the village and Moor Gate. There was Gregory, 
swinging along with his earth-shaking movements, and 


About Novemberitis 281 

Tobias the Sunday-breaker was tucked under his arm, alive 
and unmutilated but writhing with pain. 

Berenice started up and ran, babbling endearments, and 
the heavy November day became April suddenly. 

“ He’m wull enuff. Nothing broke,” shouted Gregory, 
taking the poor, damaged limb. The claws were spread 
out like the foot of a goose and the leg was fearfully 
swollen. ” ’Twas an old trap, lucky vor ’en, and the 
jaws wur blunt.” 

‘‘Let me have him. My poor darling! Oh, he’s in 
agony,” cried Berenice, kissing and cuddling the little 
sufferer and wiping his brown head and eyes with her 
handkerchief, while Tobias loved her violently, made the 
utmost of his injuries, and said he would never go rabbit- 
hunting again ; at least not until he was almost con- 
valescent. 

‘‘ His foot bain’t come to life yet. He’m all dead like,” 
said Gregory. ‘‘ He’ll be all right by evening. Old Ben 
found ’en sure ’nuff, and corned to tell me, and I went 
wi’ Ben and took ’en out.” 

‘‘ Darling boy. Doctor shall put some chloroform on 
the poor foot. Where is Mr. Brunacombe?” 

‘‘ He goes beyond,” Gregory answered, pointing below 
where a dark, limping figure was visible among the rocks. 
‘‘ He’m going home.” 

‘‘ So must I,” she said. ‘‘ Thanks a thousand times. 
You have made me happy. Oh, my pet, the paw will 
soon be well. Give it me to hold, dear boy.” 

‘‘ He’m lucky,” said Gregory. ‘‘ Me and old Ben ha’ 
bided together till he ha’ got human, and I’ve learnt 
friendliness. Friendship be a fine thing, if ’tis nought 
but the friendship of a spider. He’m a lucky dog, I ses, 
and when yew’m lucky yew can’t du wrong. If yew 
drinks poison it makes yew fat. Wull, lady. I’ll tull ye a 
story, and he’m true vor ’tis wrote down on my parch- 
ment. There wur a man who lived to Clovelly wance, and 
he wur so lucky that he couldn’t du wrong. One time 
he wanted to give a man some money, but didn’t knaw 
how to du it vor the man wur a bit above ’en like and he 
wur proud got wi’ poverty. So the lucky one ses to ’en, 

‘ See this old diamond ring o’ mine? Wull, I’ll row out 
to sea and tak’ ’en off my finger and throw ’en in, and 


282 


Heather 


ril bet yew a hundred pounds he’ll come back.’ T’other 
laughed and said, ‘ I’ll tak’ ye, man,’ vor he knowed of 
course the ring couldn’t come back. So the^ man got 
into a boat and rowed out to sea and threw his ring away ; 
and then he got home along and told volks how he’d 
been and lost his ring and would reward any one what 
brought ’en back. And the next week a little maid comes 
up along and ses, ‘ Here be your ring, master. I wur 
walking on the beach and saw mun shine among the 
pebbles.’ Wull, lady, there bain’t no fighting agin luck. 
The poor man never got the money and he owed the lucky 
one a hundred pounds.” Throwing his hand up to his 
hat, Gregory was off towards his eyrie, beginning to shout 
and sing, his great feet making deep impressions in the 
peat. 

True to his word George worked the day away. Even- 
ing came and he rested a few minutes before lighting up, 
letting the twilight play softly upon his eyelids, talking as 
usual to his partner. Bubo was a splendid companion 
for a hard-working man. George toiled during the day 
by his own energy, and when evening arrived Bubo awoke 
and became so lusty that George felt ashamed to be idle 
and worked half the night with energy borrowed from 
the owl. 

” Well, Brunacombe, how are you?” said a voice from 
the passage. The door of the Wheal House was always 
open and the doctor stepped in suddenly. He was a rare 
visitor ; George and he hardly ever met although they lived 
not half-a-mile apart. 

“Come in,” said George rising. “Here is a chair.” 
It was in fact the only one. 

“ I won’t stay. I was having a walk and just looked 
in to see that you’re taking care of yourself. You are 
thin. ” 

“ Work and November; neither are flesh-formers,” said 
George. 

“ Come round some time and I’ll run over you. You 
mustn’t let yourself down too much. I hear you spent 
last night looking for that wretched dog. I ought to 
have put chloroform into his stomach instead of upon his 
foot. ” 

“ How is Miss Calladine?” 


About Novemberitis 


283 

“ About as bad as she can be. I sent her to bed at 
once, and in the middle of the day I told her about Miss 
Shazell. You remember that pretty little thing-. Didn’t 
you paint her? It was foolish of me, but I could not 
have known she would have felt it so badly. She became 
hysterical and then had a haemorrhage,” he said in- 
differently. ” Only a slight one, but with a girl of her 
temperament it is impossible to tell what may follow. 
The only time I have any control over her is when she 
is in bed.” 

George was as cold and white as the water rushing 
past Wheal Dream. He was glad it was getting dark. 

” Miss Shazell?” he muttered. Even Bubo seemed to 
be staring frightfully at the visitor. 

” I had a letter from her doctor this morning. Last 
week she married that man Halfacre who was here with 
her. I don’t know whether you ever saw him. I had to 
send him away. The law ought to prevent such mar- 
riages. It means death to her,” he said crossly. 


CHAPTER XVI 


ABOUT CONTRASTS 

News of the world reached Metheral once a week by 
way of a local paper left at the public-house. The informa- 
tion contained therein was of the smallest kind, a jumble 
of concerts, chapel-meetings and affiliation orders. The 
contributors were for the most part village magnates 
who because they could write their names without a single 
mistake imagined they could also write English. Some of 
the more hopeless phrases were polished in the office; but 
the editor himself was not qualified to deal with such 
matters of higher scholarship as a singular verb following 
a plural noun. 

The villagers liked hearing the paper read and to know 
all that was doing in the great world of their own neigh- 
bourhood. Sometimes one of them was mentioned by 
name, though it would be generally mis-spelt, and on such 
a day he would take more liquor than was good for him. 
Perhaps one of his ewes had given birth to living quadru- 
plets ; and, the glory of the deed descending somewhat 
undeservedly upon the master, he would be mentioned 
together with his farm, parish and nearest market town, 
all incorrectly but near enough to be recognised ; or per- 
haps he would have been summoned for not sending a child 
to school, and there would be published his good woman’s 
usual excuse how that she couldn’t possibly get the 
housework done with “ a weekly baby.” The glory was 
the same whatever the cause. It was being in print, a 
public mention, a reminder to the whole world that Samuel 
Tozer of Vuzzypit parish in some glorious clay-covered 
hole of Devon was not among the least of its inhabitants, 
for his ewe was singularly prolific or his child abnormally 
engaged in domestic duties ; and that sort of thing filled a 

284 


About Contrasts 285 

niche of the parochial temple of fame with a statue of 
S. Tozer. 

The paper was being- discussed and interpreted one 
Friday evening — it was really afternoon but a dark wind 
had blown up, as it will in winter, blackening the moor 
too early — when the reader made a discovery of general 
interest under the not inappropriate heading of Mortehoe. 
A death was announced which had only occurred the day 
before, and the name of the deceased was one Job Tinker, 
who was a parishioner of Metheral, had property there, 
but had been drawn away to the remote north by business 
interests several years back. This was indeed a matter 
for fair comment, as most of the commoners present had 
known dead Tinker intimately, and the landlord had on 
several occasions assisted him the whole way from the 
bar-room to his own cottage because Tinker’s rheumatism 
always came on badly late at night. Now he had de- 
parted ; that fact alone was of little importance ; but there 
would be a carnival, suitable rejoicings, black streamers, 
abundance of refreshments, people from all parts; for 
Tinker would certainly have left instructions for his bones 
to be placed among those of his ancestors ; and his good 
old widow would not mind spending money on such an 
occasion. The landlord’s red face became cheerful; he 
made a mental calculation of the beer and spirits in stock, 
decided he would require double the quantity, and said, 
“ Wull, I be cruel sorry. Poor old Tinker. Cuts me to 
the heart to hear he’m gone.” 

‘‘ How old wur he?” asked young Moorshed, who had 
married Miss Bidlake during the summer and had already 
got into the habit of looking in upon the landlord until 
closing-time. 

” Eighty-dree.” 

“Took as ’twere in his prime,” said Farmer Tom 
Moorshed. 

” Paid ’en better to ha’ bided here,” said the landlord. 
” Me tu,” he muttered. 

” Ah, he’d ha’ lived to a gude old age if he’d bided up 
on Dartmoor. What be wrong wi’ old Willum?” 

The bar-room being warm and well-lighted, Broken- 
brow had come in out of the black wind, had settled in a 
corner to contemplate a pot of beer and to gloat upon the 


286 


Heather 


prospect of conveying its contents presently into his in- 
terior. Thus dreaming he had dozed off until certain 
ominous words reached him. He remembered linker well 
enough ; he owed him five shillings once, and as a matter 
of fact he still owed them. 

“ Be he dead?” he cried, slopping his beer over, which 
was a matter of no importance just then ; and when the 
answer came in the affirmative he howled despairingly, 
“ Then Tve abin and lost my last resting-place.” 

‘‘ Sure ’nuff,” said Farmer Tom. ” Old Tinker takes 
the corner, Willum. ” 

” Not him,” said the landlord. ” Tinker wur well set 
up. He wouldn’t rob a poor man of his grave.” 

‘‘ Parson said next body wur to ha’ the corner, whether 
’twas man or woman. That grave be mine by right, and 
I be agwaine to stand out vor ’en,” shouted Brokenbrow 
in a thoroughly healthy fashion. 

” Why didn’t yew go first then, Willum?” 

“ How wur I to go avore I wur took?” said the old 
man in great disgust. ” I’ve played vair vor the grave, 
and Amos Chown ha’ played vair tu, though I did see ’en 
wance sotting out in the rain wi’ no coat on. I wur ready 
to go home, vor I ha’ been a gude man and ha’ never 
missed meeting, and I owes no man a penny,” he said, 
forgetting all about the debt to the deceased and a few 
others, or perhaps he meant his remark to be taken quite 
literally. “I ses it bain’t right vor Tinker to snatch the 
grave out o’ my mouth as ’twere. ” 

“He wur a parishioner,” said Farmer Tom. “ If he 
asks vor the corner he mun ha’ it.” 

“ How can he ask vor’t when he’m dead?” shouted 
Willum. 

“ If his widdie wants to claim it vor ’en, her can.” 

“ I’ll go to parson. I’ll tell ’en it bain’t right,” said 
the old man. “ I’ve been waiting patiently vor the grave, 
and the bootiful coffin wi’ brass handles, aw, and he’m got 
a brass plate vor me name tu, and I had ’en in me hands 
as they ses, and now they’m slipping out as ’em might be 
trouts, and I’ve ha’ lived righteous so I wouldn’t be took 
unprepared, like some as I could tell. And I owes no 
man a penny,” he said again, but the landlord interrupted, 
“Yew owes me fivepence vor beer, Willum.” 


About Contrasts 


287 

“ Aw, don’t ye be vulish, landlord. I ses Tinker bain’t 
ag-waine to ha’ the corner. Who wants to see Job Tinker 
wrote on a tombstone every time they goes into church 
to be baptised and buried? ’Twould be desiccation of the 
old church wall.” 

“ Who wants to see Willum Brokenbrow?” asked 
young Moorshed with a hoarse cackle of laughter. 

‘‘Your widdie wull, when her goes in to wed a better 
man than yew,” retorted Willum, who had worked him- 
self into a state of great indignation. Then he stamped 
out of the place, laying aside his righteousness for a 
season that he might curse the claimant. Some men 
apparently couldn’t do wrong. There was old Tinker 
with plenty of money stepping into parochial immortality 
and the glorious heritage of the grave beside the porch ; 
while he was to remain disconsolate and so healthy that 
he couldn’t even catch a cold. He thought bitterly of 
chances he had missed, of slight illnesses which with care 
might easily have led up to the prize, only he had been 
foolish enough to get frightened and have the doctor — he 
had never paid the doctor — so that the indisposition had 
been discouraged. No doubt it was easy to die at Morte- 
hoe, but on Dartmoor it was difficult. It was too late for 
him to go to Mortehoe, as Tinker had been and died and 
conquered. “ If ’em puts ’en in my grave I’ll ha’ ’en out 
on’t,” he muttered angrily. “ I’ll dig ’en out like an old 
tatie, wi’ my eleven fingers.” Brokenbrow was as uncer- 
tain in his arithmetic as he was in his anatomy. 

Parson was inaccessible. He was in the last stage of 
dotage, and spent his winters in bed, with a skull cap 
down to his ears and a hot bottle at his feet. When 
Brokenbrow besought an audience the housekeeper told 
him, “The dear old gentleman be sleeping like a little 
baby;” and when Willum became violent and declared he 
had come to murder these slumbers the door was slammed 
upon him ; and a moment later the information went 
reassuringly up the stairs, “ ’Tis all right, your reverence. 
I’ve abin and got rid of ’en.” 

Brokenbrow stood without and the shape of his face 
became altered with fury. He saw it all now ; there was 
a conspiracy to deprive him of his resting-place. Tinker 
had bought the first refusal of it with perishable gold. 


288 


Heather 


The old man’s first idea then was to betake himself to the 
longed-for spot and hallow it to himself for ever by depart- 
ing in peace thereon ; only his health was too good. So 
he went instead to see Mrs. Brokenbone who lived quite 
close. 

“ How be ye, Loveday?” said Willum as he entered the 
cottage, after much ceremonial boot-scraping upon the 
heap of furze placed at the threshold for a mat. 

“ Aw, I be fine, Mr. Brokcnbrow. And how be yew?” 
said the dame, who was knitting by the fire and keeping 
an eye upon the iron pot which seethed and bubbled like 
a witch’s cauldron. 

” I bain’t as bad as I might be,” said Willum. ” Have 
yew heard tell of old Job Tinker?” 

” He’m a cousin o’ mine. I hope he’m fine,” said the 
old lady. 

“Ah, he be. He’m dead.” 

” Dead, be he? The Lord ha’ mercy on ’en,” said 
Loveday, with the utmost reverence. “ He wur an awful 
liar, Willum.” 

” I wishes them as ses he’m dead wur liars tu,” came 
the answer. ‘‘ They’m g'oing to bury ’en in my grave, 
and I bain’t agwaine to let ’em. ’Tis worse than having 
a stranger man to bed wi’ ye.” 

” I wouldn’t let ’en,” said the dame hurriedly. “ Yew 
talks so bold, Willum, and me a widdie. ” 

“ Yew knaws what I be telling. The grave be my bed 
like, and I be the oldest parishioner, and I be cruel sick 
sometimes,” said Willum with his very defective logic. 
” Parson said I should ha’ ’en if I wur took. But I bain’t 
took. I bides,” he said pathetically. 

“Don’t ye worry, Willum,” said Loveday. “If ’tis 
the Lord’s pleasure yew mun bide yew ha’ got to. ’Twould 
be a fine thing to ha’ that grave I reckon, vor ’tis the 
best part o’ the churchyard, but ’tis fine to be abroad and 
warm and comfortable like. Job would be back if he 
could. Job be got to a place where ’em wun’t believe 
’en,” she added severely. 

“ I bain’t a liar, Loveday,” said Willum. “I be an 
upright man.” 

“ Yew uses blasphemious words, Willum,” she reminded 
him. 


About Contrasts 


289 

“ Times when I be upsot, but I be main cruel sorry 
vor’t, and I asks forgiveness. Us mun express our 
feelings. When I be glad I laughs, and when I be angry 
I swears. ’Tis just the difference between a fine and a 
thick day.” 

” It bain’t the words so much as the angry passion,” 
she said, gazing with a hungry passion into the pot. 

” Aw, but I means nought. It be all done and gone 
like. I be a righteous man. I’d be put to it to name a 
better. ’ ’ 

” I ain’t never seed ye in drink, I du allow,” said the 
dame graciously. 

” Like enough,” said Willum, though he wondered 
how he had ever managed to escape notice. ” But yew 
ha’ seed I in chapel, Loveday, wi’ the Buke on me knees, 
and yew ha’ heard I say Amen many a time?” 

The old lady admitted this was nothing but the truth ; 
but she felt constrained to issue a warning against too 
much confidence. She herself was fully insured, but it 
was not right for Willum to suppose he was quite like 
her. She could say Amen the loudest, and this was a 
matter which made for righteousness. Men had a vast 
amount of original sin in them, while women were only 
sinful when they had contracted the disease from men. 
There were a great many more women than men in the 
world, but in the better land the inequality between the 
sexes would be far greater, and a man would not be easy 
to find ; and that was the reason why there would be no 
giving in marriage. Brokenbrow was unable to dispute 
the dame’s creed beyond stating that he ” wur prepared 
and waiting to be took.” It was easy to say that, as he 
was feeling unusually well. 

” Us dreaded yew wur going home in the spring,” he 
reminded her. 

” I thought better on’t,” she replied. “What be the 
use o’ going when yew’m comfortable? I don’t crave to 
be took early. I bain’t eighty, Willum. I bain’t going 
in middle-age as ’twere. Job ha’ gone early, but he wur 
a liar and a money-maker, and lies and money-making 
breaks a body cruel.” 

“ Let *en be put away to Mortehoe where he lived,” 
said Brokenbrow angrily. “ If they brings ’en here me 

19 


290 Heather 

and Amos Chown ’ll stand to the gate and push ’en 
l33.ck> ^ * 

“ Amos be sick,” said the dame. * Job^i brought I 
some turves this morning, and told I he wur in^ bed telling 
o’ brimmles and vuzz-bushes what kept catching hold o’ 
he and scratching ’en cruel. John wur wanting daisies 
to boil wi’ a bit o’ bacon vor the old man to cure ’en. 

“They ha’ told ’en about Tinker and he’m fretting,” 
said Willum, who had just then a kindly feeling for his 
old rival. “ I’ll get across and see ’en. Wish ye good- 
night, Loveday. I’ll look in and tell a bit again to- 
morrow.” 

“ Yew’m welcome, Willum. Don’t ye worry about the 
old grave. Mebbe parson ’ll let ’em put ye in atop o’ 
Job, and then yew’ll come out avore ’en on Judgment 
Day.” 

“ I bain’t agwaine to share my grave wi’ no man,” said 
Brokenbrow from the door. ” I wouldn’t ever lie quiet 
wi’ another down under me. I’d be turning and twisting 
year after year to get mun out, and I’d get blasphemious 
and call ’en a dirty toad. If they takes the grave vor 
Tinker I’ll tell ’em to put me away in the tatie-patch 
behind my little house. I ses Job Tinker ha’ done perjury 
to get that corner, and I wouldn’t lie nigh ’en, not vor 
all the money in the world, vor when the devil comes to 
tak’ his own he might tak’ I tu by accident like.” 

With many expressions of virtue and not a little bad 
language Brokenbrow went along the dark little road 
on the side of the moor where the wintry wind was thick 
and bustling. Wheal Dream had become a place of mud 
and running water; walls indoors glistened with moisture, 
windows were fogged, and each article of furniture was 
slimy to the hand. The clay had become like wet putty, 
the peat oozed, the ferns stretched limply down the slopes, 
and even the grass seemed to have lost the greenness of 
its life. It was a dreary prospect, and at first sight it 
repelled with a loneliness too realistic; too great a depth 
of mud, too much bog, too loudly roaring a river; but 
there was something which was not at once apparent, 
something which was born into the body after a few 
weeks’ sojourning in that rough realism. It was health 
made by the wind. It was strength given by health. It 


About Contrasts 


291 

was life given by strength. That was sufficient surely. 
No place can give more than the best; and if health be not 
the best, what is better? Through the smoke of a city 
comes the glitter of gold like furze-blossoms in a fog; 
but the body cannot get at it because of disease. There 
is no gold on the wild upland; no smoke either, except 
here and there a healing fume of peat-fire almost lost 
amid so much wind. “ Forget not the best,” cried the 
Princess Use when the hind of the Ilsenstein mountain 
dropped the little blue flower in his wild hurry to cram 
his pockets with gold; and the magic blossom cried out 
also, ” Forget-me-not;” but the hind could not under- 
stand and took more gold, and the mountain clashed to- 
gether and destroyed him because he was a fool. The 
wind still calls, ” Forget not the best,” and all the 
heather cries also, ” Forget-me-not;” but men misunder- 
stand and go on grabbing at the gold, because it is warm 
and comfortable down there among the chimneys, and it 
seems terribly cold and pitilessly dreary up on the heights 
— besides they must go one better than their fathers — 
and so disease clashes upon them and they are destroyed, 
because they are fools like the shepherd lad who thought 
the best was the heap of gold, not the little blue flower 
which he trampled on. Nature is not a harlot walking 
the streets at a price, her good-will cannot be bought with 
a sovereign ; those who seek may find her in the solitudes, 
naked as Eve, lying on her back with the wind running 
over her, calling men to come to her and degenerating 
them if they don’t. But she is a wild creature with all 
her giant strength, and it is not good for any man to be 
with her long alone. 

The Chowns were at Wheal Dream, Bill having come 
to see his father and to beg the Pethericks to take them 
in for the winter. They had been up before, but John 
and Ursula would not listen to their troubles. The barn 
they occupied at Downacombe was a poor shelter. None 
of the burnt cottages had been rebuilt, and the rector 
was selling what was left of the cob ruins for manure. 
The Chowns could not afford to leave the place, as Bill 
had his work in the mine and Bessie the sanatorium 
washing. They could just make a poor living, only they 
couldn’t find a home. A cottage was a rare luxury. Bill 


Heather 


292 

could have put one up himself had he been given materials, 
for he was useful with his hands — unlike John, whose art 
began and ended with milking a cow or forking manure 
into a cart; but he did not possess any of John’s privileges. 

When Brokenbrow arrived at the tumbledown place, 
which the weather was staining as black as a tor, the 
Pethericks occupied the kitchen alone. The Chowns were 
above bringing consolation to Father. Ursula was lean- 
ing against the table upon which stood the usual smoky 
lamp and a few dirty pans. John was standing beside 
the hearth, his dented hat over his eyes. It would not 
have been easy to find a rational being to put beneath 
John ; and yet he too could endure. He was no shivering 
creature frightened at the prospect of an hour’s work. 
He might start building a hedge in the morning, and if 
he meant to finish it that day he did, in spite of exhaus- 
tion, or heat of sun, or flurry of stinging sleet, toiling 
long after dark to get the job finished ; and then he would 
stagger home and swallow raw spirit until the walls 
whirled round. He could endure any amount of hard 
work when he was sober enough. There were the 
makings of a man somewhere in John, still in the raw 
state and never likely to get any further. A decent 
woman would have lifted him, but Ursula dragged him 
down. She was far the better educated — John indeed 
could never remember the precise difference between left 
and right — but the only effect it had upon her was to 
make her dissatisfied with her lot. George, who had 
studied her closely, had owned to himself that he couldn’t 
find in Ursula one redeeming feature. 

“I be a young woman,” she shouted, her sloe-black 
eyes running over with maudlin water. “And I ha’ 
nought but work. What ha’ I got to look vor? Work, 
work, that’s what it be, year after year till the bones be 
standing out o’ me body. I’ve had a plenty on’t, I tell ye, 
a plenty on’t, and if this be living I’ve ha’ done wi’t. I’d 
be better off in me grave.” 

” Best get off there,” John growled with his hoarse 
laughter. “ I’ll ha’ a better one next time, I reckon.” 

** What did I marry yew vor?” she shouted. “ What 
did I marry a mucky old stinking lot o’ pig’s dung like 
yew vor?” 


About Contrasts 293 

“ I wur vule enough to court yew. That’s why,” 
John shouted. 

” Aw, dirty toad. Gets an innocent woman into his 
home and makes a rag o’ she, and a slave o’ she, and 
uses she vor his own trade. If I’d ha’ knowed what yew 
wur I’d ha’ took father’s razor and cut me throat avore 
going into church.” 

” Aw, aw,” cackled John, rolling about by the huge 
sooty fireplace. ” Why didn’t ye du it, woman?” 

Drunk and furious, Ursula caught a milk-pan by its 
handle, swung round and sent it across the room, tum- 
bling to the floor with the effort. It clattered against the 
wall, displacing a blackened piece of plaster, then rattled 
wildly about the stone floor; while John, howling with 
rage, snatched a handful of glowing peat off the hearth- 
stone, not feeling the heat because his hand was too hard, 
and came across the floor all legs and arms like a horrible 
octopus. Ursula began to scream frightfully at that. A 
mighty cloud of smoke billowed out from the great open 
fireplace, scattering smuts everywhere. 

” I’ll put ’en across your face. God strike me if I 
don’t,” howled John; while Ursula grabbed a turnip by 
its stalk and hit out wildly, calling him all the filthy names 
she could imagine. She was to a certain extent courage- 
ous ; perhaps that was the one redeeming feature. He 
closed with her, and they rolled among the sacks fighting 
like two cats. There was a smell of singed hair; the 
turnip parted from its stalk and bounded across the stones 
like a head from the guillotine; Ursula reached her hand 
into a stinking corner and brought it out full of black 
cobwebs and spiders and skeletons of beetles; forced the 
lot into John’s gaping mouth. The peat went about in 
all directions, the wind from the open door blowing the 
fiery fragments here and there. Then the Chowns came 
clattering down, not to find out what was going on, be- 
cause they knew, but thinking it might be time to 
interfere; and at the same moment old Brokenbrow, who 
had been watching the game from the passage, stepped 
up, knocked with his stick, and remarked with a good 
deal of truth that it was a rough evening. 

” Please to come in, Willum,” said Ursula with a 
hiccup and much face-wiping. She always prided herself 


Heather 


294 

on her ladylike qualities, and she knew it was proper to 
receive a guest, who wasn’t a relation, respectfully. The 
little domestic affair was nothing. Similar scenes had 
taken place before and would occur again. John was a 
filthy brute with a vile temper. No woman could possibly 
endure his bestial ways and savage assaults. That was 
the way Ursula looked at it. 

John stumbled outside into Uncle’s little court to wash 
his mouth, while Willum presented his compliments to 
the company, said they were all looking lusty, and ex- 
plained he had come on a little friendly visit to Father, 
having heard he was not well. 

“ He’m a lot better. Sotting up in bed he wur, and 
singing, ‘ Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,’ ” said Bessie in 
reverential tones. 

“ Old vaither be tough as twitch-beam,” said Bill. 

“Go up and tell to ’en, Willum. ’Twill du the old 
man gude,” said Ursula in her company voice, not think- 
ing much about her father, but wanting to get the visitor 
out of the way. 

Brokenbrow was soon tumbling about the stairs, and 
then Ursula addressed herself to her own relations. 

“Yew get home along. Sure as yew comes up here 
there be trouble.” 

” Not a bit o’ supper avore us goes?” said Bessie. 
” Bill be cruel tired. He’ve worked hard all day and he 
wur a bit mazed got as us came up along. ’Tis hard 
to tak’ a heavy flasket on his shoulder, and us ain’t got 
nought but turnips and a bit o’ bread to home.” 

“Yew gets nought here,” said Ursula fiercely. “ I 
knaws ye, Bessie Chown. Yew ha’ got a dirty mouth, 
woman, and yew tells shameful about I. Ses me and 
John don’t live proper and I bain’t a respectable lady. 
Bill tells the like and yew ha’ made ’en. Vaither ain’t 
going to leave none o’ his furniture to Bill, Aw, get 
on home, yew two hungry rats,” she said, turning her 
back upon them. 

” Yew and John bain’t agwaine to ha’ us under vor 
winter? Say one way or t’other vor gude, and lets ha’ 
done wi’t,” Bill said. 

‘‘Ha’ yew under!” shouted Ursula. “Us bain’t 
agwaine to ha’ thieves and robbers to Wheal Dream. I 


About Contrasts 


295 

knaws what yew be, Bill. Yew’m getting' on in the 
world,” she laughed scornfully. 

” That be a purty fine noise, woman, but there be two 
w^ays o’ laughing just as there be two sides o’ your face. 
Mebbe yew’ll learn t’other way avore long,” said Bessie, 
in the gentle voice of a woman who wants to express 
hatred. 

“ Let her bide,” said Bill. ” Us wun’t come nigh 
again. Mebbe us bain’t going up, but they’m going 
down. What about they letters?” he said. 

” What letters be yew telling about?” said Ursula with 
drunken carelessness. 

” They letters from the gentleman what yew owes 
money to. I knaws they’m coming, vor postman told 
me. What be yew going to du when he comes down 
on ye?” 

“ Shut the door in his face, same as I would on yew.” 

” That be gude enough vor we,” said Bill. “ I knaws 
that the whole o’ Wheal Dream, ’cept that bit yew sold to 
Mr. Brunacombe, be what ’em calls mortgaged, and I 
knaws that when volks don’t pay mortgages they’m 
turned out. Yew’m on the way to the House, woman, 
as I told ye avore.” 

” And I wun’t go to see she neither,” said Bessie 
viciously. 

‘‘ Yew don’t knaw what yew’m telling,” said Ursula, 
more sullen than violent. ” Us owes nought what us 
can’t pay. Wheal Dream be worth a thousand pounds,” 
she cried defiantly. 

” How much be the old house worth?” asked Bill from 
the door. “If it warn’t down under like, and out of o’ 
the wind, the first rough day would blow ’en down. Come 
home along, Bessie,” he said roughly. ” They calls the 
place Wheal Dream. I reckon ’twould best be called 
Vules’ Volly.” 

” They’ll be in a better house avore long,” cried Bessie 
shrilly, as she didn’t want Ursula to lose any of it. 

The Chowns went out and Bessie waited on the Stan- 
nary road while Bill ascended to the Wheal House. There 
was still a small corner left in the flasket, and that was 
for George’s bundle of washing. His and Winnie’s had 
often nestled together there, amid other strange company. 


Heather 


296 

but he had never known it. Bill went up and found the 
artist outside. He had impaled the ghostly sheet of a 
letter upon a furze-bush and was hurling great rocks upon 
it; a queer scene in the darkness; but when not working 
George was doing strange things. That letter had just 
reached him, and as he fancied it represented what was 
bad in him he was stoning it, just as a man curses him- 
self when he has done foolishly. Not knowing what to 
make of the mad gentleman. Bill stood still, announced 
himself, and asked for the washing. 

George stopped his antics, snatched the fluttering sheet 
from the furze-bush, and departed. He was soon back 
with his bundle, and faced Bill, who stood at the door 
touching his hat respectfully. 

“ You walk a lot?” said George. The lamplight from 
the workroom fell upon Bill’s face, dark, grimy and 
settled, the eyes losing their sight gradually, the hair 
getting thin and frosted ; soil of the mine was in every 
wrinkle, patience on every feature; it was the face of an 
animal who has been kicked and looks up to know what 
mischief it has done. 

” I du, sir,” he said. 

“You walk badly. You roll about. I have noticed 
that men who are always walking have little control over 
their feet.” 

” They’m sore, sir. I be on ’em from five in the morn- 
ing in gurt heavy butes. My hands get harder and my 
feet softer. A man works wi’ his hands, but he don’t 
du his best if his feet bain’t right, vor he mun walk to 
his work and stand to his work, and ’tis the feet what 
wears ’en out. ” 

‘‘You work hard?” 

‘‘ All the time I bain’t sleeping, sir.” 

‘‘ Where are you living. Bill?” 

‘‘To an old barn. He’m vull o’ wind and rats, and 
Bessie gets the fright when winds be rough. They rats 
run over us in bed. Makes Bessie scream, ’em du. ” 

‘‘ It’s a hard life. You stand it well — better than I 
can,” George muttered. 

Bill smiled sadly. ‘‘ Us ha’ got to put up wi’ what us 
can’t mend,” he said. 

That was Bill’s philosophy. Life was worth keeping 


About Contrasts 297 

somehow ; why he could not tell, unless something might 
happen in the future — his pick might unearth a crock 
filled with gold, or the sky might open and drop privileges 
upon him. Nothing would happen; he would go on toil- 
ing, with insufficient food and rest, until disease jabbed 
him in the spine and the wind would carry him off : but 
romance or hope lurks in the human system, and the 
mysterious future has always gifts ; some day everything 
would be different — that is what keeps men going. 
Endure for one more year and it will all come to pass, 
the long holiday, happiness and enough to live on, no 
more mists, rough days and backaches. But when the 
year is gone there is no change. Well then, one more, 
just another year of patience, three hundred and sixty- 
five more backaches and the game is won. Men never 
know when they are beaten, they are the hardiest things 
alive; that is why they are splendid. If they could see 
right into those years, which seem to stretch beyond in 
a glittering row of stars, but are probably nothing more 
than a lot of dry and shrivelled peas, they would fling 
down their tools, slink into a dark corner, and not come 
out unless they were carried. George, Gregory, and Bill, 
they were all men, and they waited for the dreams to be 
realised. But they couldn’t all succeed and get what they 
wanted. Success is a cruel goddess. If she holds out a 
laurel wreath in one hand she has a huge bloody hammer 
in the other. Every one thinks he will get the wreath on 
his head, but most get the hammer : not deserving it per- 
haps ; but what ox by his own conduct deserves to be 
poleaxed ? 

“ Us thought sister might tak’ we in,” said Bill, 
” but her wun’t. ” 

” I know all about that. I hear everything that 
goes on,” said George. “There would be nothing but 
fights if you went there. How would you like to come 
here?” 

“ Please, sir?” 

“ I don’t use half the house,” George went on. “I 
am sick to death of Ursula. She is drunk most nights, 
and generally informs me that my meal is ready by roll- 
ing about my feet. She smashes all my crockery, and 
her idea of cleaning the place is to bring in dirt. Your 


Heather 


298 

wife is clean. You are honest. She can look after me. 
Go and tell her. Come in to-morrow if you like.” 

” God bless you, sir!” Bill faltered. 

” Never mind about that. I’ll tell Ursula I’ve done 
with her. ’ ’ 

” It bain’t right, sir, not vor the likes o’ we to bide 
wi’ yew.” 

” Look upon yourselves as my servants. I’ll settle 
with your wife when you come in. Good-night.” 

George shut the door quickly and left Bill in a state 
of amazement. Both were thinking of the Pethericks. 
There would be a scene when Ursula knew she had been 
supplanted by her despised relations. The Chowns at 
Wheal Dream, living with a commoner and taking the 
bread, or rather the whisky, out of her mouth. If that 
didn’t make war, what would? The Pethericks had 
practically been living upon George, using his fire for 
cooking their own food, robbing the good-natured fellow 
right and left, cutting their Sunday dinner from his joint, 
making shameful additions to all his bills; and now his 
kitchen and home would be closed to them, and the honest 
Chowns would reign in their stead. 

Bessie and Bill crept away quickly through the night, 
and the heavy basket had never rested so lightly on the 
man’s shoulder before. They were winning, they were 
going up, they were ascending to the heights of the moor. 
They would live at last upon the common lands. Bessie 
wanted to go in and triumph over Ursula, but Bill 
restrained her. ” She’m in drink,” he said. ” She’d 
fling the fire at ye.” 

While Bill was listening to good news his father was 
hearing bad from the lips of Willum Brokenbrow, who 
at last succeeded in climbing the muddy and slippery 
stairs. Father ceased his childish hymns, with which he 
sought to ease a somewhat rough and raw conscience, 
and greeted his rival with warmth. He did not like to 
be alone, as he got the horrors, and imagined he saw a 
long bramble growing through the window and hooking 
at him with thorns as big as choppers. It was really the 
bramble which had made him ill. He had spent day 
after day attacking the side of the hedge, but somehow 
he couldn’t cut the wretched thing off, although he 


About Contrasts 299 

managed to tumble down twice and once very nearly 
rolled into the wheal. “The devil tak’ all brimmles,’’ 
had been his cry, but the devil had very nearly taken him 
instead. Now he was better and in his right mind, 
though the bramble was still a torment. He had enjoyed 
his day, however. Bessie and Bill had been to see him, 
and he had done himself good by calling them both 
“ proper criminals,” and had assured Bill he wasn’t going 
to leave him anything in his will, although he had nothing 
to leave except a few shillings and coppers stitched up in 
a piece of sacking beneath his mattress, and the old sofa 
and two chairs in the parlour which really did not belong 
to him at all, although he had claimed them by the mystic 
rite of laying on of hands and pronouncing the words, 
“ They’m mine.” It was a mystery who did own that 
little bit of decrepit furniture. Ursula declared the things 
had come into the house with her as part, and the only 
part, of her marriage portion, which was certainly a lie; 
John asserted they had been part of the Petherick property 
from time out of mind ; while Father distinctly remem- 
bered buying them at an auction in his youth and dragging 
them up to the house on a hand-cart. 

“ Sot down on the bed, Willum,” invited Father in a 
genial fashion. The seat was not inviting, as like the rest 
of the room it was insanitary and unpleasant, but there 
was no other spot available for repose. The place was 
crammed with all kinds of rubbish collected by Father in 
his various progresses, and stored there as personal pro- 
perty of some value to be bequeathed by will to such of 
his descendants as had succeeded in giving him pleasure. 
There were scraps of wool picked off furze-bushes, old 
horse-shoes, bones of ponies, tins, shells with heaps of 
shrapnel and fuses gathered from the ranges, bottles — 
common objects of the house these — battered kettles and 
crocks, and a mass of such-like refuse, which made the 
room resemble and smell like a very inferior rag-shop. 
Everything was property that came to Father’s hands. A 
large piece of indiarubber, picked up at George’s door, was 
given the place of honour upon a shelf. Evidently Father 
looked upon it as a sort of talisman. He had .indeed 
often rubbed it upon his rheumatic legs and had never 
failed to benefit by the treatment. 


Heather 


300 

Brokenbrow soon made Father acquainted with Tinker’s 
perfidious departure. The old gentleman had heard 
nothing of it, Wheal Dream being always a day behind 
Metheral, but he shed no tears. On the contrary he 
seemed amused, and laughed until his spectacles dropped 
off. “ Him and me shot vor rabbuts wance and he won. 
Now he’m took and I bides. I’ve abin and beat old Job 
sure ’nuff, and he wur younger than me tu. ” 

“ Who be agwaine to ha’ the grave?” asked Willum 
ominously. 

” Yew bain’t,” said Father. ” Yew be beat, Willum.” 

” So be yew, Amos. Seems to me Tinker ha’ died out 
o’ spite to beat the two of us. Wull yew come wi’ I 
to parson and tell about it?” 

” I can’t, Willum. I gets mazed when I be out o’ 
bed. I don’t want to be took,” whined Father. ” I 
craves to get abroad, and tak’ my chopper, and cut the 
brimmle off.” 

‘‘ Don’t ye want the grave?” said the shocked Broken- 
brow. ” Don’t ye crave the bootiful coffin, wi’ brass- 
handles, and the plate on mun as big as him yew ets your 
dinner off? I’d drop down dead and be thankful if I 
wur sure o’ mun.” 

” When I be abroad I wants ’en cruel,” whimpered 
Father, rubbing his eyes with his perennial breeches. 
” But now I be sick got I wants to bide out o’ mun. 
I craves to get abroad again, Willum. I ha’ been 
mazed vor dree days, and I reckoned ’em wur putting 
I away, and the brimmles wur scratching me legs as 
they let I down. I be all sweaty like when I thinks 
on’t.” 

” If yew wur a righteous man,” said Willum severely, 
” yew’d crave to be took same as I du. ” 

” Yew gets the fright when it comes,” Father blub- 
bered. “Yew don’t knaw where yew be hardly. First 
yew’m going, then yew bain’t. I reckoned I wur gone 
night avore last. I opened my eyes and saw the old 
lamp, and I ses, ‘ It be Heaven sure ’nuff,’ and I thought 
’twas amazing homely.” 

Father’s ambitions were somewhat mean. Most people 
would have called that horrible little room a very passable 
cell in Purgatory. 


About Contrasts 


301 

“ Yew bain’t a righteous man,” said Brokenbrow 
decisively. 

” I be, ” cried the invalid. “ I knaws Our Vaither and 
a main cruel lot o’ hymns. Sings ’em to myself I du. 
‘ Lots o’ wages left vor me,’ and ‘ Rule Britannia,’ and 
‘ Onward, Christian Soldiers,’ though I bain’t sure o’ the 
words. ” 

The other shook his head. He considered that more 
than this was necessary for salvation. Father had been 
notoriously lax in listening to sermons and therefore he 
was afraid. Brokenbrow was himself in a state of good 
health which caused him to find no evil in himself and 
made him anxious for the ceremony; though when his 
time came he would be just as nervous as Father; and he 
too would run through a list of good stirring hymns and 
miscellaneous devotions. 

Weird noises sounded over the dark wheal as Broken- 
brow shuffled on his way to the inn, where he still hoped 
to enlist public sympathy on his behalf. Bubo had con- 
trived to flutter to the roof of the house, where he was 
declaiming his loudest, and bringing undomesticated 
members of his family down from the rocks to hear what 
this fellow had to say. His master was listening, and 
the monotonous cry said to him, ” You fool ! you fool !” 
George was walking up and down the long rambling pas- 
sage of the mine house, and small bat-like ghosts of 
prehistoric tinners seemed to brush against his face with 
every movement. There was no light in the passage; 
none outside; just night everywhere within and without. 
The only white thing was that letter which waved in the 
artist’s hand. 

” That’s right. Bubo, shout it out again,” he cried for 
all the fowls of the night to hear. ” Louder, and let 
every one know. I’ve dissolved the partnership. I can’t 
work any longer with our Mr. Brunacombe. He’s a fool, 
a fool. He’s taken to religion; he’s put on a sancti- 
monious expression; he’s going to church three times on 
a Sunday; he wouldn’t draw a naked woman to save his 
life — the fool! the fool!” 

George put his head out of the window and hooted. 
The imitation was exact, and presently Bubo came tum- 
bling down, settled on his master’s wrist, and was taken 


Heather 


302 


in. There was a narrow window-seat, and there George 
sat and scratched his partner behind the ear. Bubo 
lowered his head and chuckled joyously. 

“ Let me put it to you plainly,” George said. He 
opened his mind to the owl as he would not have done 
to his own kind. ” You remember we wrote a novel. 
Bubo. It was a desperate venture, a sort of catch-money 
thing, and it was vilely well done, for you and I can turn 
out tolerable stuff when the pinch comes ; but it was dirty, 
filthy, a lustful thing. We wanted money. Bubo, and we 
want it now — never did we want it more, for the cruise 
of oil is getting light — and in our extremity we remem- 
bered the saying of a man who had made a success of 
his life, though perhaps he never took the trouble to look 
at his hands very closely. ‘ My boy,’ he said, ‘ if you want 
to make money at this writing game, write fornication.’ 
We remembered that man’s advice and we followed it. 
The book was written, we sent it off ; and now there comes 
this letter from the publishers.” 

The typewritten sheet was scarred, torn, and muddy 
with ill-treatment. Bubo ran his eyes over it, then pecked 
it viciously. 

” It’s a good offer, senior partner. They are keen for 
the book. I have written the answer and signed it, and 
now you must sign it too — Bubo, his mark. We hadn’t 
met her in those days,” he whispered, clutching the fluffy 
little body feverishly. ‘‘We didn’t know what love was, 
and how absolutely pure it can be. Not a matter of blood 
and lust. Bubo; not at all. Not a matter of this secret 
or that secret and shame between; but a soul, a person- 
ality, eyes, hair, nose, dimples, a little movement, a hand 
at rest on your arm, two small feet at your fireside, a 
certain manner that is nowhere else — see what a lot of 
beautiful things against the one that is base. And we 
never knew of them until she came and went for ever. 
We shall not see or hear of her again. Bubo, but we shall 
never forget. And if we have to go mad together, why 
let’s do something first to her memory, to the day we 
saw her at Chapel Ford, to that last morning we picked 
her heather, to that smile, that touch of her hand — ah, 
that little nose. Don’t be a fool. Bubo. Let’s put up 
something to her memory. We can’t do much. We’ll 


About Contrasts 


303 


give all we can. The letter is written, Bubo. Call it folly 
or sickly sentiment, but we won’t change it. Better to 
starve in love than thrive on fornication. ‘ Send the manu- 
script back,’ we have written. ‘ The thing is unclean, and 
we will burn it.’ ” 

Then the simple creature blundered blindly down into 
his work-room, with the little bird tucked under his arm, 
murmuring in secret and with many repetitions, like a 
priest at his devotions, the one small name. 


CHAPTER XVII 


ABOUT EVICTIONS 

The coming of the Chowns to the Wheal House made 
Ursula mad. She soon flung herself there, clawed Bessie’s 
face, and cursed George with original words ; when ejected 
she hurled wet cow-dung at the windows, and wiped her 
filthy hands on Bill’s face when he sought to remove her 
by force. She waited for either of the Chowns as they 
passed to and fro, and rushed out with a big stick. Poor 
Bill received some large bruises, but accepted them as 
Heaven-sent. Bessie could hardly venture outside, and 
had to keep the kitchen door locked and the window pro- 
tected. Ursula was not so mighty as she seemed, for all 
her terrific noise; she was always in liquor, and a good 
push sent her down into the mud. Her clothes were a 
shocking sight; the woman seemed to be encased within 
stiff clay. John was no better; his trousers were plastered, 
his hands and face caked; when he came near the fire 
and the stuff began to melt, he steamed and stank like 
a heap of refuse in the sun. The two were fighting con- 
tinually, but Ursula was always the aggressor; John did 
no more than act on the defensive, until the brute in him 
arose and the smell of blood was in his nostrils, and then 
he retaliated. His method was to fling the woman down 
on her face and thump her on the spine with his clenched 
fist. Such drum-like sounds often made music those 
wintry nights. Sometimes they would be fighting indoors 
like a couple of gladiators; sometimes on the little road, 
hitting at each other with lighted lanterns until their faces 
were covered with oil. The only washing they ever got 
was when they fell drunkenly on the track, which was 
then all water forced by the rain from the side of the 
moor. 


304 


About Evictions 305 

Uncle hardly ever appeared in his court, and the door 
of his tiny cottage was fastened for fear of the Pethericks. 
Although his home was practically a part of theirs, the 
contrast between them was startling. Everything in 
Uncle’s living-room was clean and neat; the copper candle- 
sticks were bright, the cloam showed no soot, the concrete 
floor shone like polished wood; and Uncle did it all him- 
self, not with money, but with old trembling hands. Uncle 
had ten servants, his own fingers, all of them as old and 
decrepit as himself. No smear of clay remained long on 
his floor ; when the weather made a dirty mark on his door 
Uncle wiped it off, after glancing from his window to be 
sure the Pethericks were not about. When he heard them 
indoors he shuffled out for water or turves, or to poke his 
ugly old head over the gate to swallow some air. Ursula 
caught him at times, as he could only move very slowly; 
and once she flung him down on the stones of his court. 
Uncle thought at first his leg was broken, and frightened 
her away by saying so ; but it was only paralysis creeping 
up his side. The old fellow had every reason to be afraid 
of the Pethericks, because he only enjoyed a life interest 
in the cottage, field, and steep garden; on his death the 
property reverted to John. The Pethericks had always 
hated him for having, as they imagined, crept in through 
some legal quibble, and now they were nearing the end 
of their tether the old man’s death was becoming neces- 
sary. Ursula had approached Jimmy on that subject. It 
was perfectly true that she had an unholy friendliness for 
the boy. But Jimmy naturally wanted Uncle to continue, 
and in any case he was far too lazy to follow Ursula’s 
suggestion of greasing the stairs. 

“Jimmy, boy, bain’t yew ever going to du nought?” 
Uncle asked every day except Sundays. He did not ask 
secular questions when he had his black coat on. “ Bain’t 
yew ever going to be a man ? ’ ’ 

“ How be I to work and mind Dora tu?” came the 
answer, if one was vouchsafed at all. 

That wretched bastard was an excuse for everything. 
Whatever was Jimmy coming to. Uncle wondered. He 
was getting whiter, flabbier, more sensual every month. 
Although so young, most of the male faculties appeared 
to have departed from him. He was so weak that 


20 


Heather 


306 

to shuffle up the stairs made him puff and blow and 
exclaim, “Aw, my poor heart.” His hair was long, his 
hands were white and soft, his abdomen was distended, 
and that horrible white fattiness, passable enough in a 
buxom wench, was growing more pronounced. He had 
become so lazy that he could hardly speak, and it was only 
in the evening, when vitality was less sluggish, he was 
able to sing to the infant. Most of the day he sprawled 
upon the bed, on his back, the baby sleeping on his chest. 
Jimmy did not believe Uncle’s story about the dwindling 
money. He knew the old man got his rents regularly and 
must have saved a lot. That was true enough, for Uncle 
had always been a very thrifty soul, living easily on less 
than twenty pounds a year; but old men who have saved 
hate to spend. 

“ Get the young monster out,” George had said many 
a time. Uncle loved the artist, who gave him such good 
advice, and often of an evening would stand at his window 
and look across at the Wheal House watching the move- 
ments of the wonderful gentleman as well as he could. 

“ How be I to du it, master?” he asked. 

“ Lock the door upon him. Keep him out. Tell him to 
go to the devil,” was the blunt answer, but Uncle felt he 
couldn’t say that, as he had a simple faith in the predatory 
powers of the evil one, who could easily retain a human 
soul thus committed to his charge. Something must be 
done, he decided, but first it would be necessary to say 
many prayers, sing through his hymn-book with the best 
courage that he had, and read the Bible from Genesis to 
Revelations. Uncle was no humbug, though he did sleep 
with his money-box and give it more devotion than was 
right. He was getting on with the well-thumbed Bible; 
all the big prophets had been waded through, and the 
little ones too, although Uncle really couldn’t make head 
or tail out of any of them ; and now he was in the New 
Testament, which was all plain sailing, and was so enjoy- 
able that he read it aloud, standing by his table with the 
glow-worm of a lamp smoking in front of him ; and he 
acted it as well, when Jimmy was snoring in the room 
above, and nobody was near to see him ; it was no laugh- 
ing matter, nothing to jest about, for Uncle’s religion 
was something very real; and it was in a tme devotional 


About Evictions 


307 

spirit that he shuffled about the shining floor, with his 
grotesque old gorilla-like head shaking, playing the part 
of Simon Peter or the Virgin Mary, and even with awe 
and reverence the greatest of them all ; and while poor old 
Uncle played the part of his Redeemer, with a torn blanket 
round his shoulders — the pictures showed him they wore 
such things in those days — John and Ursula were defiling 
Wheal Dream and themselves on the other side of the wall. 

^ Uncle was seeking courage but not finding much. 
Jimmy must go and find his own place in the world; he 
was to depart with all the tramplings and trumpets of the 
Apocalypse; and the last word of the Bible should be 
Amen for Jimmy too. 

Father was again in unpleasantly rude health, and 
tottered between house and linhay in his four-legged way. 
He had conquered the bramble at last, worn it away with 
perseverance and iron implements, and his mind was at 
rest. He had also been picking up a lot of things which 
had accumulated during his illness. He had been very 
near acquiring a vast amount of property, for Bessie, in 
cleaning out George’s work-room, incautiously placed a 
number of things outside the door. Father came shuffling 
along and rejoiced to perceive so much wealth. Every- 
thing was his, bought and paid for with his own money 
years ago. Father had plenty of time and plenty of 
string, as the lesson given him by the ant had not been 
forgotten. So he gradually enmeshed various articles with 
a web of twine, fastened the ends to his limbs, and was 
just making off with the entire lot dragging behind when 
Bessie appeared, nipped his laborious project, and called 
him a “proper old thief.” Father had never loved his 
daughter-in-law, as he considered she had ruined Bill, just 
as he imagined that his daughter Ursula had been the 
salvation of John; and he regarded her then as a particu- 
larly loathsome object. To threaten was useless, and he 
couldn’t use one of his sticks, as he required them to lean 
upon. The only way he could show his disapproval was 
to spit at her while she was unharnessing him ; and he 
did so, his aim being accurate. Bessie, who was a very 
cleanly woman, went into a rage and smacked his face. 
Father wept, tottered to his daughter, and described how 
Bessie had robbed and insulted him. 


Heather 


308 

“ Put her hand in me pocket and took all me money,” 
sobbed the old rascal. ” Took me gold watch and spec- 
tacles tu,” he added, although he did not possess such a 
thing as a watch, and the spectacles were jammed across 
his forehead. “ I ses, let me bide. I be old and weak, and 
her scratched me face and spat at I like an old Tom.” 

Ursula picked up the pig-pail and departed. Luckily for 
Bessie she escaped just in time, and the pig-wash soused 
the door. That evening George came down and told the 
Pethericks that if they gave any more trouble he should 
invoke the aid of the police. ” Us be free volk,” was all 
the answer he got; Ursula didn’t seem able to realise that 
they couldn’t go on abusing their privileges for ever; and 
as for John, he supposed that the gentleman was trying to 
insult them. 

Most women have a parting word for their husbands 
when they go forth to the day’s work. Ursula always 
said to John, ” I hopes yew’ll never come back alive;” 
but he invariably did lurch home and disappoint her, 
although they were often almost friendly over the first glass ; 
it made them laugh, but the second brought forth words, 
the third railings, and the fourth blows. Neither could 
stand liquor; they were already so highly strung by the 
stimulating wind that a little drink made them roll. They 
were always tumbling about, but escaping serious injuries, 
until one evening Father met John as he came jolting in 
from the moor, standing upright in his cart, a gaunt, 
spectral object against the darkening sky, with the state- 
ment that Ursula had fallen from the top of the house 
to the bottom, and was as dead as a door-nail. 

John was not perturbed. Father had never been known 
to make a correct statement in his life. He said, “ Aw, 
be her?” and unharnessed the horse in a leisurely fashion, 
then went on with his stable work, while Father tottered 
about, with an icicle forming on his purple nose, declaring 
he couldn’t go into the house, for he was afraid of 
” carpses,” they were so ” natural like,” and he had got 
the horrors again almost as bad as when he was in bed 
with the bramble digging its thorns into him. “ I heard 
she fall, Johnnie. I wur washing my foot in the cream- 
pan. ’Twas like a sack o’ taties -coming down. I lost 
count o’ the thumps, mebbe ’twas four, mebbe five. And 


About Evictions 


309 


her called, ‘ Oh, me God.’ I heard she, Johnnie. Her 
wur alius a gude woman, and her called God wi’ her last 
breath, as wur proper.” 

John lurched to the house, and Father came tapping 
and groping some way behind. Ursula was doubled up 
at the foot of the stairs, smelling strongly of alcohol. She 
had tumbled from the top step to the bottom, as Father 
had described, and was badly knocked about and stunned. 
John pulled her straight, rolled her over, shook her, and con- 
cluded he would have to go for the doctor. Ursula’s misfor- 
tune meant a quiet night for him, if not for Father. The old 
man was terrified when he heard he was to be left alone. 

” I bain’t agwaine to bide wi’ the carpse, Johnnie,” he 
whined. ” Her may get up and walk. Her wur always 
restless like.” 

” Her bain’t dead. Her be breathing as rough as Dart- 
moor wind,” said John. 

Father did not regard this as a satisfactory symptom. 
Corpses appeared to him to be capable of doing anything. 
He stated his intention of going out and trying to gain 
entry into Uncle’s cottage. He and Uncle had been on 
good terms once, and he thought this would be a good 
opportunity for a temporary reconciliation. Nothing like 
a death to bring people together. And when they had 
greeted one another, and consented to let bygones be 
bygones. Father could borrow various black articles of 
apparel for the forthcoming funeral, and thus add to his 
personal property, for after wearing them they would 
become his as by law established. Father became quite 
cheerful at the prospect. It would be a much brighter 
world, he thought, if there could be a death in the family 
every day. 

John went off, but the news was in front of him. Father 
had told the driver of a passing granite-cart and he had 
informed the village, adding a chapter of his own. 
Presently Bill Chown passed through on his way from the 
mine and heard the revised version; half-way to Wheal 
Dream he met his wife, who was also on her way to the 
doctor, mistrusting John, and she told him the truth. 

” Where’s John to?” asked Bill. 

” Yonder,” said Bessie, pointing to the inn. John’s 
sheep-dog was lying at the door. 


310 Heather 

“I’ll pay ’en,” said Bill; and then he went off to 
the inn. 

It was unfortunate for John that he had to pass the 
house of good cheer. It mattered nothing that his wife 
was stunned and might by dying. He must have his 
drink; and once inside that warm, friendly place, with 
others talking around him, a pot of good stuff between 
his hands, and with a taste for the same thoroughly 
acquired, there was not the slightest chance of his leaving 
the house until closing time. He happened to drop in at 
an auspicious moment, for the room was almost full, and 
Willum Brokenbrow occupied the centre, his feet planted 
in the sawdust, his face shining with philanthropy, invit- 
ing every one to drink at his expense. 

“ That paper be a proper old liar,” he was saying when 
John opened the door. “ Wull, here be John Petherick. 
Pint o’ beer vor John, landlord, if yew please. How be 
the woman, John?” 

“ Her be mazed,” said John. 

“ Us heard her had broke her neck, but I said ’twarn’t 
true,” said Brokenbrow. “Women be like cats. They 
falls light. Du ’ye pitch in the corner, John. I be giving 
a little party. I be standing drink as if ’twere ’lection 
time, vor Tinker bain’t dead, after all.” 

“ I reckon he be,” said the landlord, in a disappointed 
voice. 

“ Wull he be and he bain’t,” said Willum pleasantly; 
“ That old newspaper got it all turvy-twisty like. Tinker 
be dead and he be living, but there be more than one 
Tinker. There bain’t enough names vor every one, so 
some of ’em ha’ got to tak’ alibis. I don’t knaw whether 
that be the word, but I means to say that one man has 
to give his name to another. Wull, that bain’t it neither. 
What I means to say is that one man is the alias — aw, 
that be the word — of somebody else.” 

“Yew means there be a lot o’ volk wi’ the like name,” 
explained the landlord. 

“Aw, that’s it,” said Willum. “There wur two 
Tinkers, ourn and some other place’s, and one of ’em died 
and t’other didn’t; and the newspaper got mazed over 
’em and said ’twas ourn. Our Tinker be fine, and us 
cares nought about t’other. Seems there wur two Tinkers 


About Evictions 


311 

to Mortehoe, one what bided there, and that be our Tinker, 
and t’other what went there to get well and died instead, 
and that be the foreigner Tinker.” 

John was gaping in a corner, trying to understand what 
was being said, and doing his best to imitate the others 
in the matter of laughter. He had already consumed his 
pint, and had turned the mug upside down to draw atten- 
tion to its emptiness. He had forgotten Ursula, and 
wasn’t likely to remember her again until he awoke from 
a drunken stupor the next morning, unless something 
happened to remind him. Something did happen, for the 
door of the bar-room opened to admit Bill Chown, who 
walked straight across and placed his copper-stained hand 
on John’s clayey shoulder. 

” Pint o’ beer vor Bill, if yew please, landlord,” shouted 
the most hospitable Brokenbrow; but while the publican 
hesitated, in some doubt as to whether Willum would ever 
find the cash. Bill looked across with an austere counte- 
nance and said — 

” It bain’t no time vor drink. Yew’m sot here,” he 
went on, addressing his brother-in-law, ” while my sister 
be lying dead to home. Du ’ye hear what I be telling, 
John? Dead,” he said solemnly. ” Her wur took not 
ten minutes back, and Bessie be at the door all out o’ 
breath to tell ye.” 

There was a big silence in the place, and the form of 
Brokenbrow ’s visage changed again. He no longer 
desired to give Bill beer. He would rather have given 
him a dose of foot-rot for being the bearer of such tidings. 
Hardly had he escaped from one dilemma when he found 
himself in another. Human life was indeed uncertain; 
and so was his grave. 

” Aw, Bill, don’t ye say it, man,” he whined. ” Don’t 
say her’s dead. Us can’t spare she.” 

John stared at a framed advertisement of somebody’s 
whisky and found the sight congenial, although he 
couldn’t read it, but was well able to recognise the picture. 
He gaped a little wider, and that was all. No doubt Bill 
was telling the truth. The whisky would last twice as 
long now that he would have it all to himself. That was 
John’s first impression. 

“What did her die of. Bill? Wur it serious?” asked 


312 


Heather 


the landlord, in the solemn voice which was entirely pro- 
fessional. The joys and sorrows of his fellow-villagers 
were measured by the amount of liquor their emotions 
might require. 

“ Her fell down-stairs when I warn’t there,” John 
blurted out in sudden terror. They might think he had 
murdered the woman. ” Her wur all twisted up nohow.” 

” They’ll sot on she. They’ll ha’ the body here, and 
’twull be vor the jury to tell whether her died from falling 
down-stairs or whether her was drownded,” said the 
landlord, trying not to appear satisfied. The inquest 
would mean a busy day. 

By this time John had arrived at his second impres- 
sion. He was trying to think of a suitable maid or widow 
who might be foolish or man-mad enough not to re- 
ject his courtship. All his impressions just then were 
pleasant ones. Romance was glimmering again in his dull 
mind. 

“I be struck,” wailed Brokenbrow. “ I’ll get home 
along and go to bed, but I wun’t die, neighbours. ’Tis 
no gude dying now. Aw, Bill, what be telling, man?” 

Bill stood just behind John’s shoulder, grimacing at the 
company and winking broadly. They quickly interpreted 
his signs. It was a practical joke, a trick to frighten 
John, a little punishment for him; Ursula was right 
enough — she was, as a matter of fact, sitting up in bed just 
then, groaning and sipping the usual remedy — and Bill 
had come to scare John out of his poor wits by making 
him believe she was dead. Every one understood this was 
a family affair. John had been a brute to Bill’s sister, and 
Bill was going to punish him for it. Old Willum became 
lively again and renewed his request for beer. 

” Du ’ye hear, man?” Bill shouted, striking John’s 
shoulder. ” Her be dead.” 

” S’pose her be dead, what then?” John shouted. 

” Bain’t yew going vor the doctor?” 

” If her’s dead her don’t want doctor,” was all John 
had to say. 

Bill was shocked and disappointed. It had never 
occurred to him that John would refuse to be frightened. 

” If I wur told my woman had died while I wur drink- 
ing in the public I’d be upsot,” said Bilk 


About Evictions 


313 


“So would I,” declared the landlord; and the rest 
concurred. 

John was making himself unpopular. It was one thing 
to stifle grief with a pint-pot; quite another to display 
callousness. Public decency had to be respected, while 
John was defying it. He was only wondering what the 
expenses would be and how he could manage to cut them 
down. 

“Yew mun get home and du what be proper and vitty 
like,” said virtuous Brokenbrow. 

“ Let ’en walk alone. I wun’t be seen wi’ ’en,” said 
the disgusted Bill. 

John was persuaded to rise, grinning and gaping, and 
feeling somehow proud of himself, and at last shambled 
out with a cheerful, “ Gude-night, all.” The conventions 
were a nuisance, but it seemed necessary to observe them. 
He slouched through the darkness to Wheal Dream in a 
contented frame of mind, trying to whistle, only he never 
could, shouting at the ghostly sheep dotted about like 
masses of granite, and making them jump ; and so he came 
home, stamped up the little passage, his head far in ad- 
vance of his feet, found Father huddled over the smoky 
peat eating bread and cream and smuts, and heard an 
angry voice: “If that be John, vaither, tell ’en I be 
waiting vor ’en wi’ the muck-fork.” 

John made a clumsy movement, which almost landed him 
into the fire. He was really frightened at last. 

“ Be that the woman?” he muttered, staring at the old 
man, who was blinking his weak eyes like a sleepy cat. 

“ Ah,” chuckled Father contentedly. “ Her be conver- 
sational getting, Johnnie.” 

That same week, before the Pethericks had entirely 
recovered, the one from her fall the other from his disap- 
pointment, a little gentleman climbed up to Metheral. He 
was fat and prosperous, with a pink and babylike face, a 
vast smile, and a touch of dialect. He was a country 
solicitor, and he had done business with farmers for so 
many years that he had learnt to talk like them. A merry 
soul was this little gentleman, and he could fleece a poor 
man in such a nice and friendly way that the miserable 
wretch woul(l think all the time he was receiving a favour. 
He was well dressed too, not that his clothes were a very 


Heather 


314 

good fit, because he was a countryman, but they were made 
of the best stuff ; he had a bowler hat with a mighty 
dome to it, too large and slipping over his bright blue 
eyes, and rings on his fingers and good boots on his toes ; 
and he hummed like a great hornet as he trotted along the 
road. He was a member of the Law Society, clerk to a 
number of boards and institutions, had the law of mortga- 
gor’s estate and rights leaking out of every pore and 
wrinkle, and he was just the man to play a confidence 
trick to perfection. He was not very well up in venville 
rights, however, possibly because in that respect the com- 
moners are a law unto themselves ; the charter of their 
liberty, which directs that their rights shall be as they 
have been “ time out of mind,” being very much like the 
rubric at the beginning of the Prayer-book, which orders 
that chancels shall be as in time past ; but as neither party 
is able to show what these phrases exactly mean, both 
commoners and clergy can do pretty much as they please, 
and put their fingers to their noses when the law is 
mentioned; and they generally do. 

The pretty pink gentleman trotted and hummed towards 
Moor Gate, his keen nose in the air, smelling guineas all 
the way. This big enclosed field was worth so many, 
that little triangular binhay so few. One cottage was a 
complete eyesore because it could never be made profit- 
able, another was almost pretty and deserved to carry a 
fifty-pound loan ; while the farm-house of the Moorsheds 
was admirable, and its stout timbers seemed to be asking 
for a substantial encumbrance. This little guinea-pig 
grubbed up money with his pink nose wherever he went. 
If he put a shilling in the ground it had become a pound 
by the time he routed it out. The clay represented to him 
the building-trade, the rivers suggested fishing-rights, and 
the great moor a Royal Commission, with a lot of little 
solicitors swinging to it at the ends of pink tape by their 
hands, and not by their necks, as they should have done. 
He reckoned up the value of every man that passed and 
reduced him to guineas ; the same with every young 
woman, only he brought them down to pence because of 
over-production and a dull market. The squat tower of 
the church was a charming object, and brought to his 
mind memories and anticipations of all manner of tangled 


About Evictions 315 

actions. So he rambled on, smelling fees and contracts 
and five-per-cents, all the way. 

Gregory was at home, digging his wind-swept patch, his 
great figure visible half-a-mile off. The visitor gambolled 
up to him like a young sheep, shouting — 

“ How be ye, cousin? Lifting tetties? Dartmoor peat 
grows ’em fine, I reckon. Worth a guinea a sack, yew 
may depend.” 

“Wull, wull,” said Gregory heartily. ” ’Tis Mr. 
Odyorne, sure ’nuff. ” 

** That’s who ’tis. Your relation two or dree centuries 
removed. Shake a paw, cousin, but mind ye my hand 
bain’t a nut, and yourn bain’t a cracker neither. My 
word, yew’m a gurt lusty chap.” 

This was how the little lawyer got along so well in the 
world. He was not exactly a philanthropist, at least he 
never gave away a guinea except for breeding purposes, 
but he had a philanthropist’s manner. He was every 
man’s equal. 

“Come vor fishing, sir?” said Gregory. “The trouts 
be splashing fine down under Halstock. ” 

“And yew grope vor ’em. Aw, now, tell the truth. 
Yew go down wi’ a lantern and grope vor ’em.” 

“Sure ’nuff. I ha’ the right,” said Gregory. “Any- 
thing off the moor that may du me good, ’cept green-oak 
and venison. I ’d break the back of any what tried to stop 
me. 

“I’d help ye. I’d stand up vor my own family,” cried 
the merry gentleman. “ Wull, now. I’ll tull ye. I bain’t 
come vor fishing. I’m here to see our friends the Pethe- 
ricks. They’m forgetful like. Bain’t treating me proper, 
and when I writes to ’em they don’t answer. Reckoned 
I’d run up here and see yew first.” He picked up a 
potato and played ball with it. “ What sort of a man be 
John Petherick? Do he drink more than be vitty like?” 
he asked carelessly. 

Gregory saw the trap immediately. Information was 
being sought from him to be used against a parishioner, 
and this he could not give. He had no feeling either for 
or against the Pethericks, and did not wish to aid or 
harm them. Gregory did not interfere with people. He 
believed in leaving every man to stand in his own 


3i 6 Heather 

whirlwind. By the unwritten law of clanship he could not 
answer Mr. Odyorne. 

“ Us all catches the bird^ master, and some catches a 
plenty of ’em,” he said, laughing and wiping his face with 
his sleeve. 

“ What bird?” asked the lawyer. 

” The swallow. I can’t tull ye how many mak’ a 
summer or a winter neither. Depends on the man. Two 
swallows o’ whisky would mak’ a hot summer vor me, 
but I can’t abide the stuff. A swallow o’ wind be the 
bird vor me.” 

” And how many swallows make the Pethericks’ 
summer? What’s the bird there, cousin? The liddle 
yaller wan wi’ dree stars vor the tail o’ mun?” the visitor 
suggested, in his broadest and most genial dialect. 

” Ask ’en, master. I knaws nought about neighbours. 

I bides up here along and don’t meddle wi’ volks, and they 
don’t meddle wi’ I vor fear o’ being broke. Wheal Dream 
be yonder. Purty nigh a mile beyond. I’ll show ye the 
way across.” 

Not a word could the subtle little gentleman extract 
from Gregory concerning the Pethericks, although he 
went on trying; but all that he got was his first lesson 
in commoners’ law. He learnt also that Gregory did not 
like to be questioned. Preserving that genial manner, 
which was the cloak that concealed his business methods, 
he parted from the big, lonely figure and trotted off across 
the moor, humming pleasantly like so much machinery in 
motion, and smiling lovingly at the wild ponies just to keep 
his hand in. 

It was a day of evictions, attempted and contemplated. 
Uncle had finished the Revelations, prolonging the last 
chapter into a kind of anthem to gain time, for the act 
he was contemplating frightened him dreadfully. At first 
he thought he would go through the Bible again, but the 
portability of the rnoney-box made him reject such weak- 
ness. Then he decided to study the parts which dealt 
with battles and murders, to enkindle the martial spirit 
within him; but again he weighed the money-box and 
obtained thereby the nerve which all the chapters of 
Israelitish warfare would never have given him. 

The stars in their courses beamed approvingly . upon 


About Evictions 


317 

Uncle. Dora, the baby, was asleep by the fire, packed up 
in her little wooden box; Jimmy was sprawling^ on his 
bed up-stairs ; it was cold outside, with watery mist, and 
vicious discharges of sleet occurred every hour like a 
necessary tonic. That weather ought to bring Jimmy to 
his senses. Uncle hardened his heart, prayed for the 
baby’s welfare, expressed a desire that it would not catch 
a severe cold; and then he dragged the box outside and 
left it beside the hedge which separated his court from 
the Stannary road. The first stage was easy enough, 
though it seemed a murderous thing to do. 

He went to the foot of the stairs and called the boy. 
Only the wind answered, and he called again, blowing out 
his hairy cheeks and shouting until even torpid Jimmy had 
to hear and to ask what the silly old fool wanted. 

“ The baby be in the court, Jimmy,” explained Uncle, 
in the voice of tragedy. 

There was a thump upon the ceiling, which meant that the 
boy was leaving the bed of indolence, and Uncle quaked 
more than ever. Everything was prepared; the key was 
on the right side of the door, and the boards were ready 
for screwing across the window. There was a side of 
bacon in the cottage, and enough turnips, potatoes, and 
flour to last well into the new year, so he could stand a 
long siege. Jimmy had wondered why the old man was 
carrying such a quantity of turves into the place, but he 
had been much too lazy to ask the reason. 

” How did her get out there?” the youth was bleating 
in his ugly, falsetto voice, as he shuffled weakly down the 
stairs. 

Uncle said nothing. The truth was impossible, and he 
could not say the baby had hopped suddenly, box and all, 
out of the window, like a jumping bean. He stood by the 
table, trying to act the part of Simon Peter, who was his 
favourite character, partly because a picture in his Bible 
represented that apostle, somewhat unkindly, as having a 
certain facial resemblance to himself. ” Silver and gold 
ha’ I nought,” muttered Uncle, “leastways not much.” 
Jimmy and the baby were evil spirits, and it was his duty 
to cast them out; but there was not much of the apostle 
about Uncle, except his faith, when the boy saw what 
had been done and accused him. The old man shuffled 


3i 8 Heather 

away and grasped his Bible that he might receive 
courage. 

“ Yew dafty old mazehead,” piped the boy. “ Yew ha’ 
took she out. My poor liddle lamb. Her will be starved 
wi’ cold.” 

Out he went, and Uncle’s spirit revived. He shambled 
across the floor, hugging the great book, shut the door, 
locked it, and stood there quaking, with the key in his 
hand, like a quaint fresco of his favourite character. Then 
he made for the narrow window, which would not in any 
case have admitted the corpulent Jimmy, placed a board 
across and began to screw it to the woodwork. The worst 
of the business was over, he hoped. The boy would at 
least perceive that he had been given a delicate hint to 
withdraw. 

Jimmy guessed as much so soon as the key was turned, 
but he had no intention of accepting eviction. His first 
thought was for the pig-faced baby. Having protected 
the infant’s face against the stinging wind, he went to the 
window, saw the old man’s terrified countenance behind 
the blurred glass, threatened it, shouted and shook his fist 
at it; but that was no use, for Uncle could not hear, and 
the gestures were only what he had anticipated. He was 
Peter the doorkeeper, and Jimmy was a lost soul. He was 
sorry for the boy, but he had been given every chance; 
his record was entirely bad, his sins were unrepented of, 
and he must leave the sheep and go among the goats. It 
looked as if it might snow presently ; and snow would 
make Jimmy a very miserable goat indeed. 

The boy went off, lurching backwards, dragging box 
and baby. He had his friend Ursula in reserve, and he 
found her in a more decent state than usual, scrubbing 
Father’s head. The old man had his head washed when- 
ever it grew irritable. John was out rebuilding the side 
of a hedge, working hard, like the good machine he was. 
He would have followed Uncle’s example, but far more 
roughly. The Pethericks were an old and respectable 
Dartmoor family, which had never permitted bastards to 
enter their home. Ursula, who had brought base Chown 
blood to Wheal Dream, was inclined to be less decorous, 
and she was quite ready to take the wanderers in. 

“Aw, the old brute,” she cried bitterly. “Turning 


About Evictions 319 

his own flesh and blood out to starve. That’s chapel volk. 
Wait till John conies home and us will tear the door down 
and break the old toad’s face vor ’en. Proper old devil 
he be wi’ his psalms and hymns. Gives us no peace to 
nights wi’ his praying. That’s what Bibles and chapels 
bring volks to — turning innocent little children on Dart- 
moor to starve. His own blood and bones tu. ” 

“ What be I to du wi’ Dora?” asked the miserable 
youth. 

” Tak’ she to the linhay. It be warm there in the hay. 
If John wur to find she in here he’d tread on her. When 
it gets dark us will give the old brute a proper reception. 
Don’t let John see ye,” she called. 

” Keep the brush out o’ my eyes, wull’ye?” said Father 
sternly. 

Jimmy took the baby into the linhay and soon returned, 
actually in a hurry and excited, to say that a gentleman 
was talking to John up in the field. ” He shook hands 
wi’ John. He’m a foreigner,” he said. 

Ursula left the towel hanging over Father’s head like 
a bridal veil and ran out. Strangers in Wheal Dream 
were rare objects in the winter. John was stumbling 
down towards the house with a merry little gentleman 
jumping at his side. 

“Aw, my God,” muttered Ursula, recognising the 
visitor at once. 

They were coming down to her, as she was business 
manager, John being incapable of the smallest trick which 
required intelligence. He had never even registered his 
vote, as he could not be taught how to do it. 

Mr. Odyorne smelt guineas all around him. Wheal 
Dream was a charming spot, full of possibilities, beautiful 
even in the winter. The only thing was to clear these dis- 
gusting people out, pull down their horrible house and 
stinking outbuildings, and then build a pretty little chalet 
with a thatched roof and verandah, make a garden down 
the gorge, plant the wheal with flowering shrubs, and the 
lot would sell for a fancy price if he didn’t keep it himself 
as a summer residence. He had lent the Pethericks two 
hundred pounds and an instalment of fifty was long over- 
due, to say nothing of the interest, not a penny of which 
had ever been paid. He had not pressed them very hard ; 


Heather 


320 

he didn’t want the money; he would indeed have been 
disappointed if it had been offered. He wanted Wheal 
Dream, and at two hundred pounds it was very cheap, a 
wonderful bargain in fact. Those guineas of his were 
breeding like rats. 

“ Aw, Mrs. Petherick, here us be,” he cried, putting 
out his hand and giving Ursula a shake such as she had 
never known in her life, so hearty and friendly was it. 
“John and me ha’ been telling a bit, and now us ha’ 
come down to listen to yew. I’ll tull ye how ’tis. I shall 
have to look after Wheal Dream vor ye. Let’s go into 
the warm and tell about it, vor I be purty nigh froze up 
here. ” 

The little gentleman skipped between the Pethericks, 
took an arm of each and walked on almost hugging them. 
He could put up with a lot of unpleasantness when he was 
smelling guineas. Ursula, who had never been so 
flattered, was delighted. Evidently Mr. Odyorne did know 
a real lady when he saw one. Her clothes might not be 
quite the thing, as they were covered with grease and 
clay and oil ; but he recognised her genteel character and 
pleasant, aristocratic ways. 

The little man was as sharp as a furze-bush. While 
walking across the moor he thought about Gregory’s 
manner, added to it the information he had already 
acquired, and arrived at the conclusion, which was indeed 
the correct one, that the commoners would never permit 
him to evict the Pethericks openly. Dartmoor folk have 
often shown that they are in some senses outside the law 
of the land ; they rely on their own rights and strength, 
which outsiders must have a giant’s power to break down. 
They will part with nothing, they have withstood the 
Duchy officials with complete success ; and it was there- 
fore not likely that the commoners of Metheral would have 
stood idly by while a foreigner turned the Pethericks out 
of Wheal Dream, which the family had occupied for 
centuries. A duller man would not have perceived this; 
but little Mr. Odyorne when out sniffing was very sharp 
indeed. He knew his way about; he could walk in the 
dark without a lantern ; and he was well aware that soft 
words and diplomacy are more effectual with rough people 
than any amount of violence or bluster. He did not know 


About Evictions 


321 

a vast amount of law ; but he understood human nature, 
which was far better. 

Now then, volks,” he began, when they were in the 
kitchen and Father had been relegated to his usual seat 
upon the turnips. “ What be this they’m telling about 
ye? Them Pethericks be the best neighbours in the 
world, they’m strong and sober and hard-working, but 
they don’t mak’ the place pay. Tull ye what ’tis. Yew 
want a business man to run the varm vor ye. Aw, John, 
yew’m a fine fellow, but what du yew knaw about busi- 
ness? A vulgar thing business. Yew ha’ been brought 
up to something better. ’Tis only us vules what go in 
vor business, ’cause us ain’t got the sense to mak’ a living 
wi’ our hands.” 

John also felt flattered. He knew he was a fine fellow, 
only nobody had ever told him so before, and his wife had 
always tried to make him believe he was much lower than 
the beasts of the field. “Aw, aw,” he laughed, stagger- 
ing about on his long crooked legs ; but his conversational 
powers ended at that. 

” I had to come and see ye about that bit o’ money, 
and now us be telling one to another, friendly like, I’ll let 
ye into a secret,” went on the lawyer. ” ’Tis like this: 
I be in difficulties, and if I don’t get the bit yew owes 
me 1 shall be sent to prison, mebbe. Bad job that, volks. 
Bread and watter, wi’ neither butter nor cream ” 

” Us ain’t got no money,” broke in Ursula somewhat 
defiantly. 

” Lord love ye, my dear, of course yew ain’t. None o’ 
us ha’ got money these hard times. I’d be ashamed to 
turn out my trousers and let yew see what I ha’ got,” 
said Mr. Odyorne, with perfect sincerity. ” I’ve got no 
money to pay my debts and yew ain’t got none to pay 
yours, but yew owes me two hundred pounds. Never mind 
the interest, volks. Us be friendly and us bain’t Jews. But, 
John me lad, if us can’t settle something I’ll have to assign 
my mortgage, and that means sell it to the Jews, and they’ll 
be down on yew day and night and won’t rest till tjhey 
ha’ squeezed every farthing and a bit more out o’ yew.” 

“Us be free volk,” said Ursula as usual. “They 
couldn’t touch we.” 

“They could, my dear. They’d have all the king’s 


21 


Heather 


322 

horses and all the king’s men out after ye. Aw, and all 
the king’s ships if they could find watter to float ’em on. 
Yew don’t knaw the Jews. They can du anything. I’ve 
seen a Jew tak’ a stone and squeeze mun in his hand till 
it fair dripped wi’ best mutton fat.” 

Ursula was silent. She did know something about Jews, 
as she had heard George raving against them; and she 
had sense enough to reason that if he couldn’t escape they 
too might find it difficult. 

” Wull, I’ve got a scheme,” went on the merry pink 
gentleman. ” I don’t come to my friends unless I can 
give ’em a hand up, so to speak. I’ve got a scheme in 
each pocket like stones at election-time. Now, John me 
lad, what du’ye say to a beer-house, a nice little house in 
Plymouth town, and nothing to du except draw the beer 
and watch the money rolling in? Du that tickle ye under 
the chin, man?” 

Obviously the scheme tickled both Pethericks all over. 
To live in a town was naturally the height of Ursula’s 
ambition ; and to be the landlady of a public-house was 
to occupy a position somewhat, if at all, lower than the 
angels. It was the unlimited opportunities of using his 
gullet for the purpose assigned to it by creative nature, 
rather than any desire to become a man about town, which 
appealed to John. Little Mr. Odyorne added them up 
correctly. His sharp eyes saw the bottles scattered about 
the place. His knowledge of country folk told him how 
weary they were of the long, unlighted evenings and how 
ardently they desired the town when they were tied to the 
land. He had the public-house in his mind and could 
get them in ; and they would not know, until it was much 
too late, that the licence had only a few more months to 
run and would not be renewed. Once out of Wheal Dream 
they could never return, for the place would be legally 
his, and there would be no house to come to — directly they 
were out he would burn it down, as that would be the 
cheapest way of clearing the ground — and the commoners 
would be told he had bought the property, and as for the 
Pethericks they would never be heard of again. The 
Guardians of the Poor would take good care of them. 
Little Mr. Odyorne knew a trick or two when he was out 
after guineas. 


About Evictions 


323 

He babbled on with gilt-edged phrases and drank tea 
with them, pouring it into the saucer in the most homely 
way, until Ursula was charmed. He patted Father on the 
shoulder, called him a dear old gentleman, and declared he 
was the very picture of a venerable Duke. Father accepted 
the compliment and coughed all over the visitor to show 
his appreciation. Then John wanted to know what the 
gentleman intended doing with his property, as he plainly 
hinted he wasn’t going to part with a stone of it, and 
was told — 

“ We’ll do it up fine, and I’ll let it vor ye at a hundred 
pounds a year. We’ll divide the money, share and share 
alike till I get my little bit back, and then yew’ll tak’ the 
lot.” 

John grumbled something about wanting the entire 
sum, with the beer-house thrown in, but Ursula stopped 
him with a ” Shut thee noise, man, and don’t insult the 
gentleman. ” 

Mr. Odyorne became still more friendly. He declared 
he had never taken to people so much in his life. John 
and Ursula were the real good stuff, and he couldn’t say 
anything else; and as for Father, why, the innocent way 
in which he unbuttoned himself before company was per- 
fectly touching in its simplicity. At last he jumped up 
and said he must go, as it was already dusk and he had 
a train to catch. He would see about the beer-house and 
write to them in a few days. He shook John heartily by 
both hands and said — 

” ’Tis a gude day’s work, I reckon, man. Nothing like 
foreclosure when yew ain’t got money. Yew don’t knaw 
what foreclosure means and I’ll tull ye. ’Tis getting 
another man to du vor ye what yew can’t du vor your- 
self. Yew knaw the proverb, ’tis a rough wind what 
blows gude to nobody. Wull, that’s what foreclosure 
means. Aw, John, ’tis lucky yew bain’t a man o’ busi- 
ness. Good-bye, my dear,” said the mocking little wretch, 
turning to Ursula. ” My word, if yew bain’t a fine 
woman I wouldn’t knaw where to find one. If John wur 
to be took I’d be after ye, sure ’nuff. There, never mind 
John. He bain’t looking.” 

He drew her into the passage and kissed her cheek. 
Mr. Odyorne would have kissed anything for guineas. 


Heather 


324 

Then he trotted off as hard as he could go, rubbing his 
mouth and muttering, “ Pah ! the dirty devils.” 

In the meantime Jimmy had gone asleep in the linhay, 
exhausted with his exertions, and there John discovered 
him when he came for hay; and for the second time the 
boy was ejected, but on this occasion without guile. 
Ursula came running up and the usual fighting began, 
until it occurred to them to form an offensive alliance 
against Uncle. John was not going to have Jimmy on his 
premises, for he declared the wretched youth had been 
after Ursula in his absence, and Father, who was highly 
virtuous, had indeed suggested as much. The baby re- 
quired sheltering somehow, although, as John said, there 
was no necessity. Ursula proposed that Uncle’s door 
should be battered in, and there was no dissentient. 

It was dark in the cottage; there was not even a glow 
of firelight. Uncle was squatting in a corner, clasping the 
Bible to his noisy old heart, in an agony of terror, praying 
with all his might. His enemies were upon him, and he 
felt sure they would murder him and swear they had done 
it in self-defence. When a blow came upon the door he 
shrieked as if it had landed on his body. That was John 
with a great lump of granite. John was such a strong, 
rough man, and he desired his death that he might have 
the cottage and field and strip of garden behind. And that 
was Ursula’s voice, ” Open the door, yew old devil. 
Open it, wuH’ye?” Then another blow and another; and 
the light of a lantern flashed through the cracked wood 
and made lines of fire upon the walls. There was John’s 
brutal laughter, and Ursula’s vengeful voice again, 
‘‘Takes our property from us, and drives his own Mood 
and bones out on Dartmoor to starve. Hit ’en on his 
blasphemious old mouth when yew gets in, Jimmy.” 

Uncle did not move. He could not because something 
more than fear was holding him down. His body was 
marvellously cold and numbed, and the pricking in his 
right leg had ceased suddenly and the limb seemed to dis- 
claim all connection with him. He had always been 
nervous, and that was why he had wanted a companion 
in the cottage. Even the rats at night had frightened 
him. He invoked aid from Heaven, but knew he was not 
doing it properly, and jumbling the words up; and once 


About Evictions 


325 

he discovered he was actually praying to the wonderful 
gentleman, and calling him the Deity, and begging him to 
perform a little miracle to help a poor old fellow whose 
only fault was a rather too great unwillingness to spend 
money. He confessed it then ; he had always been afraid 
of finding himself penniless in extreme old age. 

“ Send down along and help, Lord God Almighty,” he 
quavered. ” Mr. Brunacombe, if yew please, gentleman, 
come across if it bain’t troubling yew, vor I be main cruel 
scared and helpless. If yew please, holy angels, and 
Simon Peter apostle, just vor an old man what ha’ put 
up wi’ a lot and ha’ done the best he could if ’twarn’t vor 
going fo bed wi’ the money-box vor fear o’ the thieves. 
Please to send the gentleman. Lord Almighty, and Bill 
Chown, and St. Michael o’ Halstock. I bain’t able to 
bear it any longer, and my old legs du seem amazing 
vunny like. My head be mazed got tu. I can’t seem to 
mind the bit about passing through deep watter, and the 
gentleman wull say I ha’ done right.” 

The blows went on and the lock was bulging, though 
Uncle could see nothing except those horrid yellow flashes 
of the lantern. He seemed to be sinking into cold, roar- 
ing waters. Perhaps it was the shower of ice, which the 
wind had brought over the tors and was hurling upon the 
tin roof of his linhay, with the tumult of a thousand drums. 
Uncle moistened his thumb and turned over a few pages of 
the Bible, trying to feel out words which might soothe him. 

What a long time they were getting in, to be sure. The 
blows had ceased and there was no more cruel lantern- 
light. Uncle was too far gone to know what had hap- 
pened, but he tried to be thankful for the miracle. No 
doubt his prayer had been answered. John, Ursula, 
Jimmy, and the baby had been smitten with blindness, 
and were all going about seeking for somebody to lead 
them by the hand ; at least all except the baby. Perhaps 
the angel had smitten that with death, and a good thing 
too, for it was a shameful little thing. Jimmy was a 
wicked boy to have brought it into the world. Uncle was 
feeling hard and uncharitable just then, but they were 
torturing him so; and he had the horrors, huddled there 
in the darkness and feeling sure they were going to murder 
him to get the property and the money-box. 


Heather 


326 

John had only gone for his crowbar. Soon the light 
flashed in again, and the dreadful, murderous sounds, 
clamp ! clamp ! came like thuds upon Uncle’s head ; and 
as the woodwork cracked and splintered, and the lock 
crashed upon the concrete floor, which he had always 
kept so clean and polished, the old man started and 
shrieked in agony; and this time he went down and the 
noisy waters closed over his head. 

“Here he be! Hit ’en, the old toad. 'Kick ’en, 
Jimmy,” screamed Ursula. “ Aw,” she shivered. “ Bide 
a bit. Bring along the lantern, John.” 

There was poor old Uncle, his patient, ugly face turned 
up to the roof, the eyes wide open and staring at them, 
unable to crawl away, a hopeless paralytic. 


CHAPTER XVIIl 


ABOUT THE WILD GARDEN 

In those days George and his senses began to fight. 
His work was not enough; it filled his time, but not his 
life, and the great void remained. Bubo sat disconsolate 
and heard no more small talk. George was silent and 
grey, and worked with his head down, listening to the 
wind ; December was hunting upon the moor ; the abomin- 
ation of desolation was over Wheal Dream; its visions 
were horrible; snow whirled above, and its jagged timbers 
were blue with ice, and the things around it were dumb 
with winter silence. The wind was the only voice, and 
a threatening one. The whole world seemed bankrupt. 

Only two men-patients were at the sanatorium, both 
spinal cases, and George saw them hobbling slowly past 
his windows, protecting their faces as well as they could 
when meeting the wind. Berenice had gone, taking 
Tobias with her. She had sent a message scribbled in 
pencil to say she was going to Penzance for the winter 
and would be back in the spring if it was necessary. She 
had written to Winnie, through her home doctor, and the 
letter had not been returned, so it must have reached her. 
She could not believe that Winnie had married that brute. 
She concluded by saying she was much better, or at least 
she hoped so; and Tobias was quite well. It was either 
dog or Winnie ; first one and then the other, with some 
of herself between ; but never a word for George. 

After all he was a poverty-stricken creature, not a 
charming fox-terrier with pretty ways and soft eyes ; and 
his nervousness made him rude. He did not even know 
himself what he was; sometimes he thought himself the 
equal of John Petherick, and tried to persuade himself he 
would be better employed building a hedge or throwing 

327 


Heather 


328 

manure into a cart. What was his art but a trick, like 
a dog throwing up a piece of sugar and catching it? The 
arts baked no bread ; a wall was necessary, as a shelter 
against rough weather, if it was nothing more than the 
side of a hut-circle; but pictures upon that wall were 
unnecessary and the interior was as warm without them. 
What was the artist but a juggler, making his pitch 
first in one place then in another, trying to attract those 
who hurried past eager to get into the eating-houses and 
blow their stomachs out? 

George rarely spoke to the Chowns during those days, 
and they did not intrude more than was necessary upon 
his sight. When Bessie approached he was irritable. He 
would shut her out, write his instructions upon scraps of 
paper, and pin them to the door. Anything to escape 
talking. He knew Uncle was bedridden, and that Bessie 
ran to and fro to serve the old man, and incidentally to 
make Jimmy’s life a burden, but he did not care. He 
seemed to be struggling with his own consciousness. He 
shocked Bubo frequently by his antics ; testing the capa- 
bilities of his body and mind by tumbling about on a 
mattress with a horrid kind of gravity, and declaring he 
had been meant for an acrobat; or reciting Shakespeare 
to see if he was fitted for an actor ; or singing very much 
out of tune in a frightful deep bass, and coming to the 
conclusion that nature had intended him for a singer. 
Sometimes he thought he would make a good tradesman ; 
a fruit and florist’s business would suit him well ; and he 
could stand at the door and shout, “ Apples are cheap 
to-day,” against the biggest liar in the town. Then he 
answered advertisements in the paper, one as boots in an 
hotel, another as attendant in an asylum, being almost 
beside himself, but no answers came. Then he advertised 
for a wife, and a shoal of replies came from amorous 
servant-girls, but he flung the lot in the fire and went on 
painting while the solitude drew its mists closer about him. 
George thought he was acting quite rationally, but his 
mind was rotting, his senses were departing, the wintry 
wind was pulling him about. He became bolder than 
ever in his work and flung convention out of the window ; 
but he knew all the time his pictures were so much 
rubbish. 


About the Wild Garden 


329 

Only dull men have a single nature; there is a strange 
diversity in the clever man ; and in the genius there exists 
a strong impulse towards reversion to primitive savagery. 
That is why great men sometimes break loose from all 
control and make brutes of themselves. Their civilisa- 
tion goes hand in hand with barbarism. Every man of 
genius feels that yearning towards the wild garden, which 
is Nature unspoilt by the trim pathways of life. George 
took long walks, but he always went on the moor away 
from the tracks of men : it was not there he felt the 
solitude; it was in his home; the loneliness of the moor 
was the savagery which he delighted in. It was his 
garden, the unspoilt place, and it was the Creator’s 
garden too. The Creator does not force a plant into 
bloom, then throw it away on the rubbish heap. He 
leaves that for men to do. Men love plants that are 
artificial and short-lived like themselves, but the Creator 
makes His garden for all time; and the great glory of 
Dartmoor had never been disturbed by destructive 
gardeners. It is only a wilderness, but the wild state is 
the most perfect type of beauty; strong and free and 
breathing of immortality : and the strong mind turns 
towards it and loves to wander there, because of its 
inspiration and its nearness to the Gardener. George 
would walk out merely to look at a certain rowan dripping 
in absolute beauty into the river at the foot of Halstock 
cliff. 

Nothing but primitive wildness was there. The oak, 
ash, birch, rowan, and alder were the only trees known 
to the first savage upon Dartmoor; they are the only 
trees known there now. The wild wood remains as it 
was; so does the garden of furze, heather and bracken. 
If the early savage could return and look about him he 
would find his home in ruins, but his garden the same. 
Possibly George was one of those early savages. He 
could sit by the river and wonder if it was really true that 
Caesar had landed in Britain. There was nothing around 
him to disturb the illusion. 

In the dead December no place can be more suggestive 
of life than Dartmoor; not human life perhaps, that is 
the charm of spring, but the wild mid-life— those wondrous 
things which seem to approach men from above and 


330 


Heather 


below. Life is everywhere, from the rushing wind above 
to the trembling of water-drops ringing somewhere below 
and unseen; the moorland seems to be in travail, every 
furze-brake is in pangs, and some mystery struggles 
wildly in every bush of heather. The moor gives birth 
to dreams, and visions form in the mist; strange things 
come into the world then ; questions that children ask, 
stories that once had life in them, and there is a litter of 
little jack-o’-lanthorns sucking water in every cave. It 
is the Walpurgis month, when people run away from the 
wild garden because it frightens them; and those who 
are savages at heart have it to themselves, and can wander 
about as they like, knd find a reward. 

As Christmas came on George grew more torpid. Like 
Uncle, he was stricken with paralysis, only it was in his 
mind. His vigour decreased, little work was done for 
all his vows, and he spent hours before the fire talking to 
himself in a low voice, but not knowing what he said. 
He was conscious of receiving some money, less than last 
time, but he was informed that his pictures were selling 
at reduced figures. The kindly Jew who presided over his 
fortunes declared it was hard to find a market for them 
and he was practically giving them away. No doubt there 
was a certain amount of exaggeration in this, but George 
believed, when he was able to think of the matter at all, 
that it was wholly true. He was no genius. He was 
worth hardly the smallest copper coin of the realm. Bill 
Chown was worth far more, because he could bend his 
back and use a pick. Bill’s two horny hands were marked 
with a higher price than an artist’s head. 

At last Gregory came with a faggot upon his shoulder. 
It was the week before Christmas, and the great fellow 
brought as a small gift, and all he could, the Yule faggot 
which no commoner neglects to burn on the eve of the 
festival. 

“ Wull, sir, ’tis the oldest custom in the world,” he 
cried, as he lowered the faggot to the threshold. ” The 
ash ha’ been burnt from the beginning o’ the world to 
now, but yew and me wull be the only ones in England to 
burn ’en on Christmas Eve, and don’t ye answer me back 
neither. ” 

George looked at the faggot. It was composed of short 


About the Wild Garden 331 

sticks covered with silvery bark, and the colour of the 
wood was a faint yellow. 

‘‘ Every house on the moor will burn it,” he said. 

” I told ye not to answer me back,” shouted Gregory. 

Ees, they 11 all burn ash, but none of ’em Switch-beam. 
Volks be forgetful like. They minds a custom, but don’t 
mind what it means. I knaws, vor I ha’ got my parch- 
ment and he tulls me to cut the faggot by the light o’ the 
mune and wi’ a chopper or knife what ain’t never been 
used avore. Volks got to burn ash because it wur easy 
to come by, and so they forgot what the custom meant. 
Yew and me wull burn twitch-rods, same as they did at 
the beginning of the world.” 

George took the giant by the arm and drew him 
inside. After all it was good to have company, and this 
fine creature was a cure for melancholy. ” I lend you 
books,” he said, ” but you could teach the writers some- 
thing. Where does it all come from?” 

“ The parchment,” said Gregory. ” He’m covered wi’ 
writing all over, and there be writing on that, and writing 
on that again.” 

” You can’t make it out.” 

” Don’t ye answer me back. What I ses I holds to,” 
cried Gregory, and George perceived that argument would 
vex his heart. 

‘ ‘ I know you, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ We are birds of a feather, you 
in your ruin, I in my Wheal House. Eh, Gregory?” he 
laughed bitterly. ” We’re both seeking and both asking.” 

“Wull, sir. I’ve brought ye the trade,” said Gregory, 
not quite understanding him. ” Burn the twitch and 
yew’ll live, vor he’m the tree o’ life what stood in the 
garden. Last vull mune I ses. I’ll tak’ Mr. Brunacombe 
a faggot o’ twitch-rods, and he’ll burn mun on Christmas 
Eve and live vor ever. And here ’em be cut from St. 
Michael’s Wood.” 

” Ah, Gregory,” George muttered. 

” I cut to the west o’ the ridge, and that be in the 
forest though ’em ses it bain’t. I knaws whether I be 
inside the boundary or whether I bain’t. I wun’t be 
answered back. I wouldn’t bring ye twitch-rods from 
outside. There’s no gude sap to hiss at ye in foreign 
twitch. ” 


332 


Heather 


“ ‘ Quick ’ is the word. It’s the mountain-ash.” 

” ’Tis ‘ twitch ’ in the parchment. ’Tis the tree o’ life,” 
said Gregory. ” They used to beat maids wi’ the sticks 
on their wedding-day so as ’em shouldn’t be barren, and 
trees so as ’em should bear fruit. Us always called the 
berries Eve’s Apples, but the name be forgot now. The 
first man wur born in a twitch-beam, and he came 
wriggling out o’ mun like a white maggot. And when 
he got hungry he bit open a flower-bud and there wur the 
first liddle woman inside.” 

” Sit down there,” said George, pointing to his table. 
“Write it all out.” 

Gregory laughed until the place shook, and put out his 
huge right hand with its stiff curved fingers. 

“I’d squeeze one o’ they pens to nought,” he said. 
“ I can tell, but I can’t write. I couldn’t put down 
what I be telling to yew. A trick o’ the tongue be 
one thing, and a trick o’ the hand another. If I wur 
to write, the words would scare me like a lot o’ black 
piskies. ” 

He turned to go, but George followed him to the door, 
and said suddenly in a low voice, “ Gregory.” 

“ Wull, sir,” answered the giant, turning. 

“ You are courting.” 

For a moment George thought the man was going to 
strike him. He went white, but it was not with rage. 
His hand dropped from the door, and he said, “ A vule be 
a warning to a vule.” 

Then as George made no answer Gregory broke forth 
from his calmness like sudden wind from the heights — 

“ Didn’t I watch vor ye? Yew ha’ been gude to me,” 
he said with a tremor. “ Us bain’t the like, I bain’t high- 
class like yew, but us be men, as I told ye avore, that 
night when us wur mazed wi’ the gurt warm mune. Us 
both wants the like. Let’s ha’ the truth on’t. Us both 
wants a woman. Du’ye pitch, sir. Yew’m sick.” 

Gregory’s eyes pierced everything. George sat down, 
his head lolling on his shoulder, his face growing as grey 
as his beard. Thus he remained, with his eyes half shut, 
gulping every few moments. Sleet pattered against the 
window and the wind howled, while Bubo hooted, for the 
night was coming on and he was glad ; but all these sounds 


About the Wild Garden 


333 


were nothing’ to those fierce Gregorian tones which were 
breaking upon the artist’s head. 

“ They ses it wants a woman to knaw a woman, but a 
man can see. Du ’ye reckon I go abroad wi’ my eyes in 
my trousers? I saw yew wi’ the maids: I didn’t look 
at yew, but I looked at them. There was the dark one 
wi’ the brown face. Her would tak’ a man’s heart, put 
mun to her teeth and bite, and say, ‘I’ll ha’ another.’ 
There wur t’other. Never mind about she. Didn’t I 
watch she and yew? Ees, I reckon. Times I said ‘ He 
wull,’ and times I said ‘ He won’t.’ But her wants ’en. 
Her wants ’en,” Gregory shouted, losing control over his 
strength, driving his fist against the wall and leaving 
upon it the imprint of four great knuckles. George’s 
head was upon his chest, his hands clutching his beard. 
He tried to answer, but his tongue was dry. He remem- 
bered that he had not been eating much lately. No wonder 
he was feeling faint. 

” I came along that night, I told yew a story, I put it 
to ye as plain as I could, and I got home saying to my- 
self, ‘ Wull he?’ Yew did nought. I knaw how ’twur — I 
ses what I likes now. I be a man tu, and proud on’t. 
There be tu much pride in it. Us wants to be Gods 
Almighty, ’stead o’ plain volk wi’ breeches on. ’Tis the 
lack o’ canaries what makes vules o’ we, vor I be a vule 
tu. ’Cause us ain’t got the yaller birds us ses there be 
nought else. I knaws yew’m poor, sir, and yew’m none 
the worse vor’t. I never did see a rich man what didn’t 
look as if the Ten Commandments hadn’t been torn against 
his face. Us needn’t get into the ground and play wi’ 
worms ’cause bad luck hits at we. Hit back at ’en, sir, 
hit back. Aw, I be courting sure ’nuff. Yew larn’t me 
the lesson, and I ses, ‘ I’ll ha’ a woman avore I dies.’ 
I ha’ a poor home, I reckon, but there ’tis — a home. A 
man’s heart be there, and if that bain’t homely, what be? 
There he be, up in the wind, and let ’en blow as ’twull 
he wun’t blow cold if yew takes love in under. Yew 
mun tak’ ’en or let in the devil. 

” Us bain’t poor man and gentleman. Us be parish- 
ioners what stand up vor one another. Get up, sir, go 
abroad wi’ your head up and shout back at the wind. 
It puts life into ye, and no man ever got strong by look- 


Heather 


334 

ing on his butes. Get a razor and cut they old whiskers 
off, and buy clothes that be vitty like. Don’t be an old 
man when yew’m young. Tak’ off that grey beard, what 
be an insult to women, and dra’ a flower in your coat and 
go courting. I knaw how ’tis. Yew’m weak, but a 
woman would give ye strength, mak’ a giant of ye, mak’ 
ye want to work wi’ an iron bar ’cause a pen would be 
tu small vor ye. The canaries wull fly along when yew 
can’t get no further without ’em, vor that be the way us 
be played wi’. When us can’t get any more down under, 
us goes up. That be the law made at the beginning o’ 
the world under the twitch-beam. There be one God to 
the top o’ the tree, and one God to the bottom o’ mun, 
but it be the like God; and when yew’m got to the roots 
He ses, ‘ Go up into the branches, man, and pick they 
liddle apples. Can’t let ye bide down here along. ’ He’m 
kind, sir, say what ’em wull. None o’ us stands in more 
wind than us can bear. He sends the gude sun, and us 
brings the black clouds along wi’ our shoutings.” 

George stirred and made a motion with his hand. 
Gregory came to his side with one stride and bent his 
great body. 

” Too late. She’s married,” George muttered. 

Gregory straightened himself, was about to answer, but 
glanced down and said nothing. He went to the door, 
picked up his bar of iron, and the next moment he was 
swinging down jthe track singing loudly. George heard 
the heavy tramp and the mighty voice for a long while ; 
and then the moor gate slammed, the sounds receded, and 
became mixed up with the winds. Then George arose and 
climbed into his bed. 

Gregory was a powerful tonic, and the artist was the 
better for that dose of him. He tried to laugh and talk 
nonsense; and instead of wandering in the wild garden 
turned himself into the lanes, looked people in the face, 
spoke to them, went across to see Uncle and tried to 
cheer up what was left of him. Uncle was in the wild 
garden too, for delusions had taken hold upon him, and 
he thought he was lying exposed upon Dartmoor in a 
wild spot among the furze and ferns. George promised 
to come and read to him, and Uncle was grateful, but 
expressed a hope that the weather would not be rough or 


About the Wild Garden 


335 


it would be impossible for him to hear. It was very 
windy on the top of the tor where Uncle supposed he was 
resting. There was work for Jimmy in those days, and 
he had to do it, for Bessie refused to prepare his meals, 
so the flabby youth shuffled about the cottage cooking 
himself a few potatoes and warming the baby’s milk. 
Jimmy was getting weary of his life and meditated a 
change. Uncle’s rents were coming in, the money-box 
would soon be heavy, for the foolish old fellow had no 
trust in paper. The box was warm in bed beside the 
Bible. Jimmy made his plans; and in the meantime 
visited Ursula when John was out. 

Two days George was himself, and then he broke down 
again. The weather was against him ; each morning the 
sky was black and the moor a ghastly white with frost; 
the sun appeared to have been extinguished ; the atmo- 
sphere was cold and sluggish. George went back to his 
wanderings among the heather, following the rivers to 
their bubbling heads. The garden was a place of icy 
water; but the strange, noisy things of winter were still 
being born there, filling his mind with madness. 

Then a Christmas card reached him, a wonderful little 
picture of shepherds dressed in purple and crimson, kneel- 
ing among sheep of a most unnatural cleanliness, while 
fireworks were being discharged overhead, and on an 
intense blue sky angels were turning somersaults. Be- 
neath was a motto about peace and good-will, and on the 
back was written, “ With greetings from Francis Leigh.” 

” It is Christmas,” said George. ” The time when men 
overeat themselves or get drunk for custom’s sake, and 
advertise their godliness by sending one another halfpenny 
slips of pasteboard depicting scenes in Hebrew history; 
when old griefs come back and say, ‘ This is the time we 
meet again.’ Leigh is orthodox. But it is the thought, 
not the thing. I must go and see the dear man, and give 
him a pretty picture too.” 

He opened a portfolio, took out a picture and began to 
touch it up, wondering if any one else would remember 
him. His aunt generally wrote, wanting to know if he 
was living decently, telling him she had neuralgia in one 
place and rheumatism in another, and giving him a list 
of additions to or subtractions from her home menagerie; 


Heather 


336 

but last year she had missed, and that might mean she 
too had been subtracted. 

“ It is merry Christmas^ Bubo, and we are the old folks 
at home. Shall we get drunk for once in our lives, hoot 
carols, and throw things about? Drunkenness must be a 
kind of happiness in the wilderness; for the bottle and 
its imp make company.” 

There was a knock upon the door and Bessie appeared, 
her face red and glowing, as she had just walked across 
the village. 

” Here be a card vor ye, sir. I wur passing the post- 
office and they called me, and said the card came this 
morning and must ha’ dropped on the floor.” 

She placed it on the table behind George, who was 
sitting at his easel. Without turning he said, ” We must 
have a goose, Mrs. Chown, and Uncle shall have a cut 
from the breast. Can you get one?” 

‘‘ Ees, sir. I knaws where I can put my fingers on a 
booty. Shall I get ye a bottle o’ something homely, sir?” 
asked Bessie. 

George shook his head. A glass of milk was the 
strongest liquor he ever drank; he said so, and Bessie 
looked disappointed. “A drop o’ drink be homely-like 
come Christmas,” she said. 

” If you can’t take it what then? It’s a poor heart 
that can’t make merry without toddy. You and Bill can 
have some beer, just enough to set you singing and no 
more. If we are too sober John and Ursula will make up 
for it and preserve the respectability of Wheal Dream.” 

” That ’em will,” said Bessie, although she was rather 
shocked at her master’s lack of homeliness. ” Here be 
the card, sir,” she went on, poking it dutifully into his 
face. ” Wull’ye have the bit o’ mutton hashed vor your 
supper?” 

George did not hear her. He was staring at the card, 
a picture of a small fluffy maiden cuddling a large dog ; 
and just then he hardly knew whether Bessie was inside 
the room or not. He had never seen that handwriting 
before, and yet he recognised it. Bessie went on with 
her domestic questions, and George heard a noise and 
muttered, ” Yes, anything you like — to-day or to-morrow, 
it’s all the same.” 


About the Wild Garden 


337 

“ And a rice pudding, sir?” went on the persecutor with 
a wondering glance. The master was getting mad again, 
and he had been so much better the last few days. 

George said something, though he didn’t know what, 
and got rid of her. Then he locked the door, gloated over 
the card, turned it over and over, and at last began to 
pace the room. It was from Winnie. There was no 
doubt about that, although there was neither name nor 
initial. “ With the best wishes. I hope you are well. 
Have you finished the picture?” So much was written on 
the top of the card. Lower, scribbled apparently as a 
nervous afterthought, he read, ” I am ill again, longing 
for the moor.” 

Hardly knowing what he did, George went to his book- 
case, pulled out the first volume his hand rested on, sat 
down and let it fall open upon his knees. There he 
remained for several minutes without moving, fallen again 
into the strange state — the wild, silent life of the jack-o’- 
lanthorn — which had been his for so long. 

” I must get out,” he said at last. ‘‘ I want the 
marshes that I may think. What is heaven doing. 
Bubo?” 

The wind was up again ; the weather was always 
changing, snow to-day and mud to-morrow; but it was 
always dark. 

‘‘Look here, my dear old chap,” George muttered 
huskily. ” Don’t get mazed now. There’s nothing in it. 
Every one does this sort of thing at Christmas. I gave 
her that picture. It’s the most natural thing in the world 
she should send me a card. Besides, she’s married.” 
He leant forward, struck at his easel and sent it flying 
across the room, while Bubo squeaked with terror and 
fluttered to the other end of his perch. ‘‘ Don’t believe 
a word Gregory says. His head is stuffed full of romance 
and he lives in an atmosphere of moonshine shaken with 
the wind. Fond of me! Yet she took him; but he’s 
young, well-dressed, good-looking enough, if he is a mad- 
man once a month. Young girls see only the side they 
want to see. They don’t bother about morals if the face 
suits. Bah, she looked on me as old Father Brunacombe. 
She frowned when I tried to look at her. I don’t believe 
she ever laughed at me behind my back though. I won’t 


22 


Heather 


338 

believe that. And yet Oh, my God, look at that 

ugly, dirty devil.” 

George could just see himself in the mantel-glass. He 
saw a huddled figure in torn and baggy garments, with 
coarse woollen socks falling in rolls over ragged slippers 
that flopped when he moved. He saw a face white and 
lined, surrounded with a huge bush of untrimmed grey 
hair. 

” That’s the wild man of the moor. Poor old George, 
the savage of Wheal Dream. Look here, you fool,” he 
went on angrily, ” it’s time you dragged this dream of 
pink women out of your heart. You’ve fed yourself on 
visions all the years you’ve lived here, and they are bring- 
ing you down to the level of the wretch who dies for 
opium. It’s a wonder my work hasn’t been better 
though,” he muttered. ” I’ve had the inspiration here, 
and though I laugh at my stuff and say it’s rubbish I 
have thought sometimes — there, what’s the good of talk- 
ing? I know what it is. I was born from the planet 
Saturn on a Friday and All Fools’ Day. I must get out. 
Good-bye, Bubo, I will be back to spend Christmas with 
you, man. Stare at me and grin if you can. ‘ I am ill 
again, longing for the moor.’ Grin, Bubo. She’s dying 
and saying good-bye; and not forgetting old Father 
Brunacombe, because he gave her a picture which he 
couldn’t have sold for twopence and was glad to get rid 
of.” 

The brown book upon his knees was a translation of 
Homer. George read a few lines and rose wearily, mur- 
muring the wild music, ” And the old man went out 
silently to the side of the roaring sea.” The first poet 
knew his own nature. He knew that men desire solitude 
in the wild garden of Nature when they are in trouble ; 
and they like to feel the force of that Nature breaking 
upon their bodies. The child sneaks away into a corner 
to cry after a punishment; the man does the same when 
fate strikes him from some dark cloud. They want to be 
alone and not feel others are looking at them. Nature at 
her fiercest is the best companion in trouble because of 
her fierceness. 

” That old blind beggar was right,” said George. Then 
he drew an old coat around him and went out silently to 
the side of the roaring moor. 


339 


About the Wild Garden 

Soon the weather beat him. Snow which was more 
than half ice came against his face like pellets from a 
gun; and he was driven down to the lane crawling into 
Downacombe. Once he turned back, but felt he could not 
face his room and Bubo’s large oracular eyes and that 
postcard. She hoped he was well. She wondered if he 
had finished the picture. Which was it, the one of her- 
self sitting above the waterfall with her lap full of white 
violets, or the big canvas of the Perambulators crossing 
Chapel Ford? Neither was finished and perhaps never 
would be. He was a bee-keeper, a potato-grower; any- 
thing but an artist. Wheal Dream had been his undoing, 
not his making; it had quickened his body, not his mind, 
and now he had reached the time when health could be a 
joy no longer. 

So he came to Downacombe Rectory by the muddy 
lane. Leigh was in the church, he was told, reading the 
service to its cold walls. George went in and waited for 
him, but the house was full of smoke, the woodwork 
creaked, and the atmosphere was so charged with lone- 
liness that he was glad to wander about the garden until 
the rector appeared. 

He looked whiter and worried and much older. His 
manner had changed too, for though as affectionate and 
kind as ever, he was scared, and started when the trees 
made a noise. “ You have not been near me for a long 
time,” he said reproachfully. 

” Well, I have come now — to wish you a happy Christ- 
mas,” said George, with a touch of irony in his voice. 

Leigh repeated the words in a dreamy manner. They 
went inside, and though it was still daylight the rector 
fastened the shutters and lighted the lamps. He was 
nervous, and when George protested against this shorten- 
ing of what little day there was, he said, ” You must 
humour me. I’m getting full of whims and oddities. I 
don’t like looking into the garden these winter afternoons. 
The place is so old. This house was built on the founda- 
tions of a monastery, a nunnery once stood in the pad- 
dock, there are ruins everywhere. I am too much alone, 
and I get a bit feverish in the evenings.” 

” Anything wrong?” asked George. He was in a deep 
chair, sucking the back of his hand as if it had been an 


340 


Heather 


orange, looking at the exhibition of postcards, thinking 
of the one at home; not giving much attention to Leigh 
yet, but wondering if the man was going to reveal 
himself. 

“ I hardly know. The house seems in an unsettled 
state. I suppose ignorant people would put it down to 
spirits. Things fall about at nights.” 

” Cats,” said George. 

” There are none. Bells ring.” 

” Wind,” said George. ” There’s nothing wrong with 
the house. You are unstrung. Those parishioners of 
yours have upset you.” 

” They are appealing to me now to sell the property. 
I should, of course, if I could get a good offer; but who 
wants a decayed and tumble-down village? I think I had 
better burn the rest down.” 

” Did you ever find out how that fire was caused?” 

” There is no mystery about it. I started it, only it 
went further than I intended.” 

” What?” muttered George sharply. “You burnt 
those people out of house and home?” 

” Don’t say anything about it,” said Leigh, with a 
nervous twitch. ” The people are unreasonable and there 
is no real spiritual life in them. The buildings were 
heavily insured. I shall get rid of the old cottages 
gradually. ” 

” In the same way?” 

Leigh nodded and said simply, ” They burn like straw 
in the hot weather.” 

George was feeling queer. He opened his mouth to 
say something about arson and penal servitude, but closed 
it again, for he then at last realised that Leigh was a 
degenerate. It seemed impossible — this man so handsome 
and well made, so saintly in face, so tender in manner, 
who adored his flowers and devoted all that was in him to 
the science of rose culture, who held daily services though 
nobody ever attended them, who was clever and could 
overthrow an opponent in debate, was somehow base. 
He had no moral faculty. His wife would not live with 
him. Was it on account of her health, or had he in 
private life unnatural ways? Was he an impossible man 
to live with? 


About the Wild Garden 341 

You ought to resign the living,’' said George, in a 
wild voice. 

“That is just what my wife says. She wants me to 
exchange and go into a town, but I could not live away 
from my rose garden. Of course if God called me to a 
better living I should feel it my duty to go.” 

It was no use. The rector didn’t know he had done 
wrong, and he really tried to do his duty, and in a sense 
he was genuine. That accounted for the sincerity of his 
face and the charm of his manner. Decidedly he was not 
a humbug, and his talk about a call to a better living, 
which might have been a cant phrase in the mouth of 
another, was not so with him. He seemed to be every 
inch a man and a gentleman ; and yet it would have been 
better if he had never been born. 

“ Leigh, are you a Christian?” George burst out, un- 
able to restrain himself. He too was getting feverish 
and feeling he must either let himself go, or howl and roll 
upon the floor. 

“ My dear Brunacombe, I think you forget yourself,” 
came the cold and dignified answer. 

“ I don’t,” said George. “ Come on, man. We’re 
alone here, and what you say won’t carry beyond these 
walls. My creed is, ‘ I believe in a Creator, who made 
you, me, and everything, amen.’ Not a syllable more. 
Isn’t yours the same? You’re a sane man. You’re a 
clever man,” he cried bitterly. “ Do you believe that 
those bones on the other side of the hedge yonder will 
creep out of their holes one day, and put the same flesh 
on them, and be the same slouching folk?” 

“That will do,” broke in Leigh, with something like 
anger. “ I cannot discuss matters which are too great 
for both of us.” 

“Why not? You would discuss roses or fire insur- 
ances,” said George harshly. “ Why not things of 
greater importance?” 

“ They are a part of our accepted religion. That is all 
I can say. What is the matter with you, Brunacombe?” 

“I’m upset, like you. I’ve got a heap of trouble and 
it’s crushing me. I should like some sort of answer as 
to where I am going when I’m crushed. Your heaven 
frightens me. I’d rather not have it. No man has 


Heather 


342 

succeeded in describing a heaven half as beautiful as this 
earth. I don’t want your city of gold and oriental hymns. 

I would rather be on Dartmoor among the sheep and 
ponies ” 

“ A wandering spirit at the beck and call of every 
mediumistic school-girl,” Leigh interrupted gently. 

‘‘Bah! that is all rubbish. Religious orthodoxy!” 
George sneered. ‘‘ What is it? Why, when I was a 
child ” 

‘‘ You thought as a child. And do so still.” 

‘‘ I was frightened to death by accounts of hell. I 
dared not pass the blacksmith’s shop because I thought 
that was hell. Where is it now? During those few 
years hell has disappeared. The chapels keep it glowing, 
but your Church has extinguished it because the people 
won’t have it, and the Church as a business concern is 
wise enough to know that the wishes of the people must 
be respected. What right have you to alter a doctrine 
to suit the taste of the time, if there is any truth in that 
doctrine? I say where there is no constancy there cannot 
be truth.” 

‘‘ Only the fool or the genius tries to solve what cannot 
be solved,” said Leigh. 

‘‘And the rest are indifferent; parsons who may not 
think and congregations who cannot.” 

‘‘It is as well. A common man makes a beautiful 
subject common,” said Leigh impatiently. ‘‘ If you gave 
legs to a fish it wouldn’t be able to use them. Stop, 
stop, Brunacombe, we shall soon be at each other’s 
throats,” he said in his own affectionate manner. ‘‘ We 
shall know the truth soon enough.” 

‘‘ Is that why you shut out the daylight — because 
you are afraid of seeing the truth rustling past your 
windows?” 

‘‘ I am frightened sometimes,” Leigh confessed. 

‘‘ By what?” 

‘‘ Those matters which we cannot solve. This is a 
lonely place, there are stories and traditions, and there are 
ruins of the religious houses. It is wild these winter 
evenings. ” 

‘‘ Leigh, you are a good sort — upon my own bad soul 
you are,” cried the poor, miserable George, touched by his 


About the Wild Garden 343 

own loneliness and a look of pathos in the rector’s fine 
eyes. ^ “ Don’t tell any one else about that fire.” 

” I’m not going to,” said Leigh, in a surprised voice. 

” You are right not to answer my questions, and yet 1 
thought you might help me. I’m a failure, and I reckon 
I’m getting near the end of it all. I’m not a scoffer. 
I’m only a wretched fool who understands nothing. 
Don’t turn that lamp up. Is it dark outside?” 

‘‘ Not yet,” said Leigh, with a slight shiver. ‘‘What 
is it, Brunacombe? Not money, I hope?” 

‘‘ The curse of eternity be upon all gold, silver, and 
copper. It’s the one thing — the one and only thing which 
makes hell for us all.” 

‘‘ Love,” said the rector softly. ‘‘ Perhaps it is the 
greatest mystery of all. I know her name. She often 
mentioned you— affectionately. ” 

‘‘ What did she say?” 

‘‘ The great famous artist. The wonderful head.” 

‘‘ The old clothes, the shabby boots, the grey beard?” 

‘‘ No. She admired you.” 

‘‘ She’s married,” George groaned. 

‘‘To a brute.” 

‘‘ No,” George shouted. ‘‘ A conceited bounder, a 
moon-baked Socialist, not a brute. What?” he cried. 
‘‘ Will he treat her badly — hasten her death?” 

Leigh said nothing, but moved about the room with his 
hands behind him. He looked like a Father of the Church ; 
and yet he ought to have been in prison. 

‘‘ Come here. If you loved a woman, and knew she 
was unhappy, and guessed she was ill-treated by her 
husband, would you try and get her away?” 

For a few moments Leigh said nothing. Probably he 
would have been attacked by homicidal mania in such a 
case, but he had no idea of that. Presently he answered, 
‘‘ I should require to be tempted first.” 

‘‘ I’ll do it,” George shouted. 

‘‘ Come, come, don’t talk like this. I always looked 
upon you as a man who knew how to endure patiently.” 

‘‘ The time comes when you seem to be uprooted 
and blown about, and you can’t find a sheltered place 
to hide. Life seems to be a tragedy of wind-tossed 
opportunities. ” 


344 Heather 

“ Bear up all the way. Remember Raleigh,” said 
Leigh. 

” Ah, but he was a demi-god,” said George reverently. 
” Even he had his small successes.” 

” Yours are beyond — round the next bend,” said Leigh 
tenderly. 

George bent over and took the gentle hand, the 
earth-hardened hand which had made his parishioners 
homeless. 

” Where are yours?” 

” I have tried to do my duty here,” said the rector 
simply, ” and I have introduced two new roses.” 

George did not smile at the almost insane answer, 
hardly thought about it, but sank back into the chair and 
remained as silent as if he had gone to sleep. There was 
not a sound in the house, nor in the damp garden outside, 
nor yet in the wild garden further on. 

” What are you thinking about, poor old man?” Leigh 
asked. 

” About an evening some years ago,” George muttered, 
with his head down and his mind gone out somewhere 
into the storm. ” I was in wretched lodgings at a sea- 
side town, trying to get well, but not succeeding. I was 
so weak that every sudden noise hurt me badly; and it 
was lonely, though I have known nothing but a lonely 
life. That evening I walked out away from the steaming 
crowd, looking for a quiet place. The road went on be- 
tween trees until the houses became few, and presently I 
found myself standing before one quite alone in a deep 
garden, surrounded with flowering shrubs. It was a big 
house built of stone, and perhaps it looked cold and 
cheerless — I didn’t notice that. I only knew that some 
one was playing a piano in there, more sweetly and 
tenderly than I had ever heard it played before. I didn’t 
know what the tune was, whether it was what they call 
sacred music; I only knew it was sweet and tender, and 
it made me long to lie down there and rest. Then I looked 
at the porch. Round it ran, in severe black letters, the 
words, ‘ Convent of the Immaculate Conception. ’ I looked 
between the white curtains and could see a statuette of 
their goddess. I hate Catholicism, I do not believe in 
Christianity, and the Immaculate Conception is to me a 


About the Wild Garden 


345 

foolish tale; and yet I wanted to go in. I wanted to go 
in and not think about things any more. 

“ I went back to the esplanade. A band was making 
brutal noises, something without music or beauty. Loud- 
faced youths were strolling there, smoking and spitting ; 
young women, just as loud-faced, walked with them, shriek- 
ing like parrots ; sons and daughters of that stunning 
band. I saw a miner, with hands like agricultural imple- 
ments, rubbing his grimy mouth across a girl’s face; he 
was half-intoxicated, and some of his spittle was trickling 
down her cheek. They were just lighting the lamps. 
There was a smell of orange-peel, sweat, and cigar- 
ends. I went away. I wanted to go back to that lonely 
house with the black letters round the porch and the 
sweet music inside. I wanted to lie down in there and 
rest. ” 

“Yet you would abolish convents,” said Leigh. 

“ I would abolish them,” said George fiercely, “ just 
as your Socialists would abolish wealthy men, because 
they are not wealthy themselves.” 

He was crossing the room, already in a hurry to be 
alone again, and the rector followed saying, “ I will see 
you into the lane.” 

It was still light, with the last effort of a day which 
seemed to know it could never come again, and so expired 
unwillingly. They could see the dead-looking rose-trees, 
the blackening hedges, the wet paths. They could see, 
as they came up, the paddock across which ran the church- 
way, and the copse of firs growing where the nunnery had 
once stood. It appeared lighter, as the field was open to 
the sky. There was no wind down there, and the silence 
was intense. 

“ What’s that?” shrieked George. 

They were beside the little gate, and their weight was 
against it as they strained forward. Ahead of them the 
path wound away in the muddy grass. 

“ What’s that?” Leigh gasped. “ Oh, let it pass.” 

They started round and ran like men in fear of death. 
Down the garden they scurried, a grotesque sight had 
any one been there to see, and into the house, making for 
shelter; and didn’t pause until they reached the lighted 
study and could see the bright wood-fire and feel the 


Heather 


346 

security of walls around them. They were both panting 
and covered with cold sweat. 

“ Liver,” George muttered. “ Don’t tell me — there’s 
no truth in these things.” 

” You saw them too. We both saw them at the same 
moment. ” 

” Liver,” said George stubbornly. 

” Six,” Leigh muttered. 

” Seven. One walked in front.” 

” They swayed from side to side. Not a sound. No 
chanting,” Leigh panted. 

” All in black, and those big hoods. One of ’em 
limped.” 

” The last bearer on the right. When they came round 
the curve in the path I noticed it. They walked in step. 
They swayed from side to side.” 

” Bah,” said George. ” It was a nightmare. We 
want some medicine.” 

” I didn’t see the coffin.” 

” There wouldn’t be one — at that period.” 

” I saw no body.” 

” Nor I.” 

” Why didn’t we? Where was it?” 

” I neither know nor care,” cried George. ” We are 
mad ; at least I am. If this is how my questions are to 
be answered I’ll ask no more. The wind blows its dead 
leaves towards us out of the region of folk-lore. Let me 
out,” he said angrily. ” If I see those old nuns I’ll talk 
to them like dogs and tell ’em to get home.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


ABOUT THE FESTIVAL OF CUPS 

The eve of Christmas was cold ; moist and spring-like 
in the valleys and by the coast perhaps, but on Dartmoor a 
keen frost. During the night a change came, and at dawn, 
which occurred much later than the time specified in the 
calendar, rain descended heavily and mist spread all around. 

George started off to spend his Christmas as usual on 
the moor, with the sandwiches in his pocket and a 
mackintosh strapped round him. His idea was to tire 
himself out, then doze by the fire until bedtime. He 
climbed up the moor, tramped to the great peat-marsh and 
on to the cleave beyond, going far into the solitudes and 
seeing nothing because of the mist. Sometimes he heard 
the river plunging or bubbling between its bogs, the snort 
of an invisible pony, a flock of snow-buntings whispering 
by. On he went beside the mysterious walls and ruins, 
his foot now and again slipping upon the iron cylinder of 
a shell or getting entangled in the carcase of a pony ; his 
hands were like wet fishes, and the fresh water dripped 
from his long hair. It was a savage way of spending 
Christmas, but far better than huddling half-sick over a 
fire in company with bad thoughts. Here he was wild 
and free, with the strong wind and rain, lost to the world 
in that wool-like mist, unable to think bitterly while he 
battled with the elements. There was no home circle 
waiting for him to complete it. He was only the wild man 
of the moor, alone, and free from mortal aches in that 
splendid silence. He didn’t know he was bending more 
and looking like an old fellow of the chimney-corner ; but 
he did remark once — and that was the only time he spoke 
aloud during the morning, “You’re not walking so well 
as you did last Christmas, my boy.’’ 

In an old ruin up along the river he ate his sandwiches 

347 


Heather 


348 

and rested, getting close under the battered wall for 
shelter. Having finished his scrappy meal he leaned back 
into the ruins of a corner, piled a quantity of heather 
upon his head — it grew all round in great bushes — and 
tried to persuade himself there had never been a woman 
in the world. It was good to think he was cut off from 
the blatant vulgar festival by miles of white mist and 
boggy hills. 

“ Let ’em drink and stuff,” he muttered. ” I’m out of 
it all and not missed. There’s nothing like solitude when 
you can endure it. The man who can is the happiest of 
all beings. ‘ Christ is born to-day,’ ” he shouted. ” Why 
shouldn’t old George have his carol? He used to pipe 
’em when he was a kid, and believe ’em too. ” He laughed, 
making a shocking noise; and as nobody could possibly 
hear he made as great a tumult as he could, imitating the 
laughter of old men, young children, and hysterical women, 
until he had to stop for coughing. ” Silly old fool,” he 
said. ” This is the last Christmas of your sanity. Make 
the most of it. Ah, but I’m going to dress to-night. 
I’m going to disguise myself completely by cleaning up. 
Bubo will lie on his back and scream for brandy when I 
appear like the youthful David, fresh from following the 
ewes great with young ones. Why, George, you’re more 
like your prehistoric self to-day. It’s the wind, the mist, 
and the height — two thousand feet above the moaning of 
the bar. I shall be down again when I get back to Wheal 
Dream. Perhaps you’re not going mad, after all. You’re 
not so old. What is forty on Dartmoor? Hardly out of 
teething and coral-sucking. This is a merry Christmas, 
by Bethlehem it is. I’m going to put on a collar to-night, 
if it chokes me. And Bubo shall wear a flowing silk tie 
and a pair of striped bloomers. The firm is going to give 
a dinner to its employees, and the books shall be opened, 
and we will declare a dividend for the year and pay the 
same in coupons upon the Bank of Imagination to our own 
bankrupt selves.” 

George remained silent for some time, while rain washed 
him from head to foot. He was getting sleepy and un- 
willing to move; but presently he murmured, “That’s 
better, old George. You must try and keep this sort of 
thing up. It will do you good.” 


About the Festival of Cups 349 

Then cold and stiffness roused him, and he had to tramp 
on. This time he took the other side of the hills, intend- 
ing to pass under the five ragged tors of Metheral, go up 
to Moor Gate, and greet Gregory with a gift. 

It was three o’clock, and the day had committed suicide, 
when George reached the ruin which one man had made 
habitable. He was a queer object, like the wraith of a 
drowned fisherman, streaming with wet, and muddy almost 
to the knees from wading bogs; but he was in good 
spirits just then, having reached that stage of weariness 
which somehow gives contentment. What a wretched 
place it was, and yet how skilfully repairs had been 
effected. Each bit of wood went a long way, and every 
nail had to do a lot of hard work. Gregory expected 
everything to last as well as himself. The door might 
have been turned out of a carpenter’s shop, and yet it had 
been made out of the sides of a few packing-cases cunningly 
fitted together and the whole well tarred. Gregory could 
build a house and furnish it with what other people threw 
away. 

George went on knocking, and was just about to turn 
away when the door opened and Ben jumped out. There 
was Gregory in his shirt-sleeves, looking dull and heavy. 
He had been sleeping over the fire, living the happier 
life of dreams. He did not seem glad to see George, nor 
did he invite him to enter. 

“ Couldn’t let the day go by without coming to see 
you,” said George. 

” I never asked ye to come,” said the giant. ” Du’ye 
see yon tree?” 

There was only one, a solitary stunted fir, which was 
always trying to grow and being kept down by the wind. 

“Go and hang yourself on ’en,” said Gregory, as he 
slammed the door. 

George lost his temper too. He banged and kicked, 
and loudly threatened to break the window; and at last 
pushed the door open. Gregory snatched up his iron bar 
and shouted, “I’ll break your back,” but George only 
walked in and shut the door, saying roughly— 

“ We understand each other, Gregory, and I know how 
you’re feeling. Don’t I go through it myself?” 

He went up to the giant, took his arm, and tried to 


350 


Heather 


lead him back to the fire, while Gregory growled and 
rumbled like a thunderstorm — 

“ What ha’ ye come vor? Bain’t a man to bide quiet 
in his own home? I wur asleep, spending Christmas 
I don’t knaw where, when yew comes kicking my door. 
Why don’t ye bide to home and leave me ’lone?” 

” I didn’t swear at you when you brought me the faggot 
of quick-beam,” George answered. ” I burnt it last night 
and sat it out.” 

” Aw now,” muttered Gregory, ” any one else I’d ha’ 
broke, sure ’nuff. I wun’t ha’ volks coming in under 
here, and yew’m the first to surprise me like. How did 
the twitch burn? Did he splutter and crackle, or burn 
clear?” 

” Burnt clear,” said George. 

‘‘Then yew’ll live vor ever. Mine spluttered and 
crackled. Alius does and alius wull, I reckon.” 

George was staggered at the poverty of the room. 
That was why Gregory had feigned to be angry; he didn’t 
like others better off than himself to see what he had to 
put up with. The floor was of peat, dry and dusty ; the 
walls were of bare stone, covered with beads of moisture ; 
there was the big oak chest, the family heirloom which 
contained the parchment, and a home-made table, but that 
was practically all the furniture. There was no chair, a 
piece of plank resting upon two lumps of stone did duty 
for that. The remains of a Christmas dinner, bacon and 
potatoes, were upon the table; and the cloth was repre- 
sented by a piece of paper. It was pathetic, this poverty ; 
pitiful that a mighty creature should never have carved 
out a place in the world with his strength and skill. Surely 
there was something wrong if Gregory could remain at 
the bottom while little weak men reached the top. 

‘‘ Du ’ye pitch now yew’m here. This be my home. 
What think ye of ’en?” 

‘‘ You could have done better than this,” George 
answered. 

‘‘ How could I? Tell me that.” 

‘‘ You could have worked in a different way.” 

‘‘Vor a master. Not me. I’d ha’ broken ’en if he’d 
answered me back. I be a man, not a dog to whine and 
follow,” 


About the Festival of Cups 351 

“You must take the world as you find it, Gregory. I 
work for men that I loathe, because I must.” 

“ I bain’t made o’ that trade. I bides up here along, 
and looks out over Dartmoor vor miles and miles, and I 
ses, ‘When I finds a man to frighten me I’ll work vor 
’en. ’ He ain’t come along yet.” 

“ That’s the spirit which breaks a man,” said George. 

“ It wun’t break me, not while I can lift my bar. When 
I be sick got I takes my bar and wrastles wi’ the sickness 
and I beats ’en. That’s how I be young yet. How’s the 
home vor a woman?” he asked swiftly. 

George was silent, but his face twitched and answered 
for him. It was not a home for any woman. Love would 
shiver itself to death on that wild hill-top, which grew 
nothing but heather above the ground and potatoes below ; 
and shrivelled all else except that hardy growth of man- 
hood who revelled in it; and the sort of woman that 
Gregory could win would not know much about the divine 
passion. She would appreciate the independence of a 
home, her title to a man, but she would grumble and swear 
when possession had lost its novelty and she saw the life 
that was to be hers till she dropped down dead. That 
was the sad part of it; Gregory could never find any 
woman to understand him ; and he could not go outside 
his class, for he was at the bottom, and when a man is 
there the weight above him is enormous. 

“ The time will come. You’re a young man,” said 
George. 

“Aw, younger than yew, I reckon. There be some 
proper old men here about. Harry Bidlake to Downacot, 
Willum Brokenbrow, Amos Chown ; and after them comes 
the lot I be among.” 

“ You’re not forty,” said George. 

“ Wull, sir, that be true. I bain’t forty, but I be 
sixty-two. ’ ’ 

“ Rubbish,” said George. 

“ ’Tis true enuff. I be a strong man now, but one day 
I’ll break and then I’ll drop. I wun’t bide in the old 
chimbley. ’Tis out o’ doors or death vor me.” 

It was difficult to believe the man. His hair was abun- 
dant, showing no sign of age ; his limbs were free and 
supple; his face held perpetual carnival, wearing upon it 


Heather 


352 

a brown mask of youth. He looked a younger man than 
George. His manner of life had given him something 
after all — a sort of immortality. Up there on the heights 
of Moor Gate he couldn’t grow old. He would go on 
swinging up and down, shouting like the wind, road- 
making and hedge-building with his great iron bar, until 
he simply stopped, not because he was worn out, but 
because he had reached the end of the allotted span of 
human existence. His back would be broken by a law of 
Nature one day while he worked, and he would die young, 
if old in years. He appeared to have failed in life, to 
have received all the evil and none of the good ; and yet 
he had solved the whole riddle of human existence, the 
riddle of perfect living and perfect dying; without weak- 
ness or disease the one, without mental failing or bab- 
blings the other; coming and going like the wind, which 
rises in one part of the moor and shouts across the 
heights, seeming almost to shake the mountains, and yet 
doing nothing except scattering sticks and stones and 
unroofing a barn or two, then going away suddenly, for 
no apparent reason beyond that it has done what it was 
meant to do and its time is up. So with Gregory ; he 
would go down with his bar upon his shoulder as it were, 
with his eyes and ears open ; not the wreck and ruin of a 
structure which was once a man. 

It seemed ironical to talk about a merry Christmas and 
a bright new year; and yet the man seemed happy. He 
wanted only one thing, a woman who could understand 
him. It was not a small thing and it was unobtainable ; 
but where is the man who obtains just that one thing 
which would seem to make life perfect? 

“ I ha’ seen the new parting from the old,” said 
Gregory. ” I ha’ seen all things break in two like yon 
old hearthstone. Yew see he be only half a hearthstone. 
T’other half be in America — least I reckon so. Hundreds 
o’ years ago, when volks emigrated to the new land, they 
broke the old family hearthstone and left one half vor 
them what bided and took t’other half across the seas. 
They reckoned ’twas homely like to sot round the old 
stone on a winter’s night and hear a gude Demshur 
telling. The hearthstone wur the best thing in the house 
them days. A man would ha’ sold his bed rather than the 


About the Festival of Cups 353 

old stone, and Government taxed ’em tu, aw, two shilluns 
a year vor every hearthstone, and that wur a lot o’ money 
four hundred years agone, but men paid ’en, vor they 
wouldn’t ha’ lost the stone what their old granfers tolled 
by vor twenty times the money. Wull, sir, I ha’ seen the 
times break like the old hearthstone. ’Tis a bad thing 
surely vor Dartmoor volk to crave to get away to London 
and other foreign parts; ’twould ha’ tored their hearts 
when I wur a lad, but now they’m glad to go. Buildings 
be crumbling got and ha’ fallen down, and nobody builds 
’em up again. I’ll be the last in this old place, I reckon.” 

George went to the corner where the iron bar was 
leaning and lifted it with a grunt, for it was amazingly 
heavy and he was not strong. It was a marvel that old 
Gregory could toss it about and carry it all day as if it 
had been nothing but a walking-stick. 

” I have a present for you,” he said, glancing up at 
the battered little cage which was always in front of the 
window. ” If you won’t take it I’ll break your back.” 

” ’Twould be a stone yew couldn’t crack, not if yew 
wur to spit on your hands and go on tiptoe,” said Gregory, 
without a smile. 

” Well, here ’tis,” said George, unbuttoning to get at 
his inner pocket. “Just a little yellow bird. He’ll sing 
and flap his wings. I’ll put him in the cage.” 

He slipped something wrapped in paper between the 
rusty wires and went for the door, while Gregory made a 
long stride across the floor, shouting, ” Bide a bit, 
wull’ye?” But George was outside, with a cry of ” Good- 
luck to you,” and hurrying down the hill into the wet 
mists, because he didn’t want to see Gregory’s face when 
that bit of paper was opened. He need not have gone, 
for the man was not angry when he saw that the gift really 
was a canary, a golden sovereign such as he had never 
owned before. His pride was not hurt, because the com 
was a token of good-will, like his own faggot of quick- 
beam; but he tossed it in the air and made it flap its 
wings and sing to him a Christmas song. Then he put it 
back into the cage and laughed. He had come into the 
way of fortune ; he could hardly reckon the possibilities of 
twenty shillings, never having tried before ; but the money 
was enough, added to his own hands, to make the rum 

23 


Heather 


354 

“ high-class.” It was a princely gift, although it set him 
wondering whether the artist had not deceived him, for 
no man who gave away a yellow bird could possibly be 
poor. Gregory knew nothing about money, except that it 
helped to convert the lesser works of nature into gentle- 
folk, but he wanted to become high-class ; that had always 
been his ambition — to end his days in a high-class way. 

” Bubo will scream and peck like blue blazes when I 
tell him about that sovereign. He hasn’t been the same 
bird since we burnt that manuscript,” George muttered, as 
he made for home. 

A shower of sleet welcomed him to Wheal Dream, and 
he put down his head and ran, banged the door open, 
tumbled inside; and the first thing he saw was Jimmy. 
The boy was sitting on the stairs, apparently waiting. 

” What are you doing here?” asked George angrily. 

“John, master,” piped the boy. “ He’m mazed wi’ 
drink, and he’m after I wi’ a gurt hammer.” 

He was in a state of terror, and the unnatural fat 
quivered on his bones. 

“ I don’t care if he is. Get out,” said George. 

“ Let me bide. Du ’ye, master. ’Tis cruel cold on 
Dartmoor, and I can’t go home. John be looking vor I, 
master.” 

“ Go out and face him. Try and be human instead of 
a lump of jelly. Come on. Out you get.” 

George took the boy by his loose arm, dragged him up, 
muttering in disgust, “ He’s like a mass of frogspawn,” 
and turned him out, deaf to the appeal for protection. 
The youth stared about in a dazed way, and his courage 
revived when he saw nothing but sleet and mist. He 
wobbled his way slowly towards Uncle’s cottage, knowing 
that his time there was at an end, for John had threatened 
to take his life, and he was in the state to keep his 
word. 

George summoned Bessie and asked what had been 
going on, but she only stammered, being a respectable 
woman, and the story was not one for her to repeat or for 
the master to hear. She had not known Jimmy was sit- 
ting on the stairs or she would have sent Bill to eject him. 
Bill was in front of the kitchen fire, warm and comfortable, 
waking up every few minutes to warble a song of thank- 


About the Festival of Cups 355 

fulness, then dozing off again. He had never been so 
happy in his life. At the present rate of progress he 
would soon be a commoner. Then Bessie came bustling 
in with an air of the utmost importance, calling — 

“ Bill! Come along, Bill! Master wants ye.” 

Bill tramped along the passage, stood on the threshold 
of the workroom, and touched his forehead twice, once 
for Bubo and once for the master, having a wonderful 
respect for Bubo, whom he regarded as a sort of Bruna- 
combe totem. 

“ So John is drunk again,” said George. 

“Wull, sir, ’tis Christmas,” Bill submitted. 

” I understand it is his duty to get drunk,” said George 
cynically. ” But what’s he after the boy for?” 

” Caught ’en wi’ my sister, sir, in the kitchen. Caught 
’en red-handed, so to say. Ursula wur drunk, or her would 
never ha’ been so careless.” 

George gave a grunt, and muttered to himself before 
saying, ” There’s been a row then?” 

” John’s been a-tearing about mazed like, hitting at 
anything wi’ a hammer. He’m tored down one side o’ 
his linhay, and flung the cart over, and broke a hen’s head 
off. He wur throwing turves abroad and stones to the 
windows, and kicking wi’ his butes like any old pony. 
He’m proper dafty, sir.” 

” What’s he doing now?” 

” In under, sir, taking more drink.” 

” Where’s your sister?” 

” Bessie dragged she over to Metheral when John went 
out to look vor Jimmy. Her wur screaming tu, and want- 
ing to get to John. Her would ha’ tored his eyes out. 
Her wull be back avore night.” 

“And no policeman for miles,” said George. 

“John wull ha’ drunk himself quiet,” said Bill hope- 
fully. “ Ursula wull throw ’en over, and he’ll bide where 
she pushes ’en, and to-morrow he’ll ha’ forgot.” 

“ Men don’t forget that sort of thing.” 

“John wull,” Bill declared. “He bain’t lamed, and 
the drink ’ll mak’ ’en forget.” 

“ Look here. Bill,” said George firmly. “ I won’t have 
any drinking here. You and Bessie must keep sober, 
even if it is Christmas.” 


Heather 


356 

“ Us can’t tak’ tu much,” said Bill, smiling respect- 
fully. ” Us ha’ got nought but beer, sir, and us be going 
to drink ’en hot, wi’ nutmeg and sugar and roasted apples 
in mun.” 

” So the wassail bowl isn’t quite extinct, though the 
name is,” said George. “Tell Bessie to take me up 
some hot water and plenty of it.” 

He dismissed the Pethericks from his mind, being full 
of the great festival programme. He was glowing with 
his walk, and the enthusiasm lent by the wind on the 
heights was still warm. He was going to dress for 
Winnie — not the married one, of course, for that would 
not have been right, but another Winnie ; and if she, too, 
had dimples and a marvellous little abrupt nose, why, 
that wasn’t his fault. After dinner they would play about 
the Wheal House like two children, and when tired they 
could sit by the fire and he would tell her stories of the 
mine below, and describe to her how the Perambulators 
came down to Chapel Ford; and then she would play to 
him and they would sing one or two of Herrick’s glorious 
Christmas hymns. There was no piano, but that didn’t 
matter, as it was going to be a dreamland Christmas. 
She would wear a white dress and satin shoes, and there 
would be a chrysanthemum in her hair; no jewellery, 
because they couldn’t afford any just yet. It had all been 
arranged, and she had already gone up to dress. George 
lighted all the lamps and candles — it was going to be an 
old-fashioned Christmas — and decided that the room 
looked very comfortable, although it was really only the 
untidy workshop, and there was not more than one chair, 
and that was bulging and half its springs were broken ; 
but so long as the dream lasted the room was beautifully 
furnished. It was a ghastly night on the moor; all the 
better, as the interior would seem more cosy. 

” The time has come. Bubo,” said George. ” I will 
get a brush and comb, and trim you up. The senior 
partner mustn’t look draggled.” 

The door opened, and the voice of Bessie announced, 
“ That Jimmy be back again, sir. He wants to ask ye 
if the stones o’ Chapel Ford be flooded over.” 

” Sure to be,” said George. ” I haven’t been down, 
but with all this rain they must be covered. Ah,” he 


About the Festival of Cups 357 

murmured, “the brute is going to run for his miserable 
life.” 

“ I’ve took the watter up to your bedroom, sir.” 

“ All right, Mrs. Chown. If a gentleman comes while 
I’m up-stairs show him in here.” 

Bessie went off perplexed by this saying. A strange 
gentleman coming to Wheal Dream at such a time. The 
thing seemed impossible, still it wasn’t her duty to say 
anything, and she was glad enough to hear the master was 
expecting company, though she didn’t know how they 
were going to enjoy themselves, as there wasn’t a drop of 
liquor in the house. 

During the next hour occurred one of those startling 
atmospheric changes so common on Dartmoor, where one 
day is sometimes composed of a dozen different specimens 
of weather ; the mist rolled away, a few stars began to 
peep, and the rain ceased; but the wind increased, and 
soon all the passages of the Wheal House were sighing, 
and there were moaning voices at every window. These 
were seasonable, if not cheerful noises. The peat glowed 
and the coals roared themselves into vapours, and it was 
feasting-time. The goose was ready to be dished up, and 
Bessie ran along the passage to inquire if the master was 
ready. 

She opened the door with less ceremony, having already 
tested the virtues of hot ale, and then she jumped. The 
studio was brightly illuminated, and a gentleman' was sit- 
ting there, but not her master. He bore indeed not the 
slightest resemblance to George Brunacombe; and Bubo 
was sitting at the end of his perch exceedingly sulky, and 
saying “ Please remove this person ” with both eyes. 

“ Ask your pardon, sir,” Bessie stammered. “ I never 
heard ye come in.” 

The stranger looked up, but said nothing. He was a 
young man, clean-shaven and faultlessly dressed; his 
features were perfect, his hands long and white ; he wore 
indoor shoes, and there was not a speck of mud upon them. 
Bessie had a queer feeling in her back, as if it had sud- 
denly been converted into a thermometer and the mercury 
was jumping up and down. She backed out, closed the 
door gently, then stood at the foot of the stairs and 
called — 


Heather 


358 

“ Be ye ready vor dinner, sir?” 

” Yes,” shouted a voice, which appeared to issue from 
the room above, because she expected it from there, but 
the wind was very confusing. 

Bessie fled to the kitchen, calling for Bill and saying, 
“There be a stranger gentleman in the parlour.” The 
studio was always the parlour. “ He’m a young gentle- 
man, and I ha’ never seed ’en avore. ” 

“ Didn’t master say he wur expecting company?” said 
Bill. 

“ Where du he come from then? Volks don’t walk up 
over Dartmoor this time o’ night. There bain’t a bit o’ 
dirt on his butes neither.” 

Bill made a face at that. Wheal Dream was a lake of 
mud, and if any stranger had come to the house he would 
certainly have brought several ounces of clay in with him. 

“ Must be master,” he said. 

“ Don’t ye be such an old vule. Bill. He’m no more 
master than your old vaither be. Wull, there,” laughed 
Bessie scornfully, “ think I don’t knaw master? The 
gentleman bain’t half master’s age, and he’m dressed fine, 
and not a hair on’s face. Proper handsome he be tu. Go 
in and look at ’en. Bill. Tak’ an armful o’ turves and 
mak’ up the fire, wull ’ye?” 

Bill did so, and in the meantime Bessie had to re- 
arrange the dining-table and prepare a place for the 
visitor. While this was going on Bill returned with a 
puzzled countenance, and asked severely — 

“ What ha’ yew put into the ale, woman?” 

“ Sugar and nutmeg, wi’ a small bit o’ ginger.” 

“ Nought intoxicating?” said Bill, by which he meant 
strong spirits, beer not being regarded as an intoxicant. 

“ A drop o’ sauce. Nought else,” said Bessie. 

“If us bain’t mazed it be witchery,” Bill muttered. 
“ He bain’t master. I never seed a man less like master. 
Spoke to I in a squeaky voice, and said ’twas a rough 
night and he’d purty nigh got lost on Dartmoor coming 
up over. He ha’ brought no coat nor yet hat, but he’m 
dry; and them butes o’ his would ha’ been tored to bits 
if he’d walked over.” 

“ There bain’t no witchery Christmas time. ’Tis the only 
time o’ the year there bain’t none,” said Bessie firmly. 


About the Festival of Cups 359 

“ Where be master to?” 

” He’m up in his bedroom.” 

” Go and tell ’en, woman. Tell ’en gentleman’s wait- 
ing,” said the perturbed Bill, moving further away from 
the bowl of hot spiced ale. 

Bessie stamped through the windy house, came to 
George’s room, but found it dark and empty. Not know- 
ing what to think she tramped down and took counsel 
with her husband. Bill became melancholy and told 
stories of enchantments, reminding his wife how folks 
had always said Wheal Dream was not altogether holy 
ground. Bessie argued that the goose was spoiling, and 
stated her intention of getting an explanation from the 
visitor, who appeared to have stepped suddenly, not into 
her master’s shoes, for George always wore large and 
torn slippers, but into his home and property. 

‘‘Ask your pardon, sir,” said Bessie when she got to 
the studio. “ Du ’ye knaw where master be to?” 

The gentleman was sitting by the fire as if the whole 
place belonged to him. He turned and gravely handed to 
Bessie a quantity of something soft wrapped in paper, 
saying — 

‘‘ This is a very interesting clematis, Mrs. Chown. If 
you plant it outside it will soon grow and cover the house. 
It is called in the vulgar tongue Old Man’s Beard.” 

‘‘ Why, ’tis master,” screamed Bessie. She recognised 
that voice well enough. ‘‘ Aw, sir, what have ’em been 
and done to ye?” 

At first she thought Bill had hit upon the truth and her 
master was under the spell of some enchantment ; and 
there was reason for her amazement because George was 
transformed out of all knowledge. A razor and some 
good clothes, in which he was feeling extremely uncom- 
fortable, had halved his age. It was a boy’s face which 
was turned towards Bessie, and the big, boyish laugh for 
the first time suited it. 

‘‘ I knew I should frighten you,” he laughed. “ When 
I saw poor old Bill come tumbling into the room with his 
eyes bulging I began to feel ashamed of myself. Even 
the owl of my bosom does not recognise me. It was 
hard work, Mrs. Chown. Upon my soul it is as difficult 
to make yourself tidy as it is to get a living.” 


Heather 


360 

“ Wull, sir,” gasped Bessie. ” Us thought yew wur 
an old gentleman. Bill, come and see master,” she 
shouted. ” ’Tis him sure ’nuff. He’m rose again,” she 
added with a dim religious memory of other rejuvenating 
methods. 

Bill appeared and expressed much satisfaction. He was 
happy to think that his suspicions concerning the hot ale 
were unworthy ones ; and he celebrated the return of con- 
fidence by lowering the contents of the bowl by at least 
two inches ; while Bessie seconded the vote of confidence 
by another inch and whispered — 

” Aw, Bill, ain’t master got butiful? ’Tis a face as 
tender as a maid’s.” 

George tried not to be downcast when he saw two places 
at the table, but he wouldn’t permit Bessie to take the 
things away. The omen was good and he accepted it. 
The shadow was there eating Christmas dinner with him, 
and perhaps some time or other the substance would 
follow. Still a shadow makes cold company with its sad 
and mocking suggestion, and George was soon miserable 
again. The game of pretence was all right so long as 
fancy and high spirits could keep it going, but the sensa- 
tion of being born again did not last. George found 
himself longing for his dreadful old clothes and the bushy 
grey beard. The windy night would not be denied. It 
crept in at every window with groans and mutterings, and 
filled the home with its greeting, ” A wretched Christmas, 
George Brunacombe, and a very dark and miserable New 
Year.” It was impossible to be lively without prospects; 
he was going down hill, obeying the mechanical law of 
nearer the bottom the greater the speed, and next Christ- 
mas perhaps would find him there. His pictures, which 
had never been worth much, were now almost worthless, 
and he was alone. For the second year his eccentric old 
aunt had not written ; possibly she had been devoured by 
her pets. Nobody had greeted him except Leigh and 
Winnie; and at that George jumped in his seat. He 
would write to Winnie, a long letter. 

Not to be posted, of course; he did not know her 
address, and the postmark on her card was a mere smudge 
beginning with a P., which might have been anything 
from Plymouth to Paradise ; but the letter could be written 


About the Festival of Cups 361 

as if it were to be posted. He could tell her everything’, 
confess that he didn’t really dislike her although report 
said she had laughed at his foolish ways ; and he would 
certainly mention the fact that he had devoted nearly two 
hours of hard work to tilling his own body as if it had 
been a piece of land, digging, mowing, and harrowing, 
and the result was a surprising harvest of youthfulness. 
He had reclaimed himself from the moor, as it were; he 
was a newtake cleared of rubbish, but he had no doubt 
that the moor would take back its own, and the heather 
and furze would soon spring up all over the clearing, 
making it as wild as before. 

Staring little Bubo shook himself to double his usual 
size, then lifted up his voice and screamed. The rascal 
had done himself well that evening, and his presence was 
so portly he could hardly see his own foot. 

“ Hoot preliminary,” said George. ” Put your wig 
straight, my Lord Chancellor. It’s tumbling over your 
eyes. ” 

Bubo hooted again, this time impertinently, wobbled 
and nearly tumbled off his perch, flapped his wings 
violently, squawked and made such an exhibition of himself 
that George remarked, “ I believe you imagine yourself a 
parrot,” and had to turn him out. Bubo rushed up-stairs 
and was soon hard at work giving his usual realistic per- 
formance overhead, which sounded as if he had murdered 
somebody and was dragging the corpse to and fro. At 
intervals he appeared to be delivering judgment upon 
various criminals in a thoroughly portentous fashion. 

George’s performance was about as sensible. He was 
writing, that being far the happiest way of spending the 
evening he could think of. The scrawl soon ceased to 
be a letter, for it was impossible to keep that fiction up, 
and he began to set down his thoughts. He had pre- 
tended to be festive that evening, but sorrow was always 
in his brain ; and now it ran down his arm and dripped 
off his pen. A man may speak lightly with tears in his 
eyes; but he can’t write lightly; neither can a poet shed 
tears with his verses unless his own heart be sad. The 
written words that really wring the heart are doubly 
pitiful ; for the heart of him that wrote was bitter. 

Bubo was fiendishly noisy that night. He seemed to be 


Heather 


362 

watching and applauding some ghastly spectacle in the 
dark room up-stairs. At last George got up, feeling 
nervous. What with the wind and the tragedy in many 
acts which Bubo was persistently enacting, all Wheal 
Dream seemed haunted. He went out and looked into the 
kitchen window. Bill was in a chair very near the fire, 
and Bessie sat on his knees with her arms round his neck. 
They were not talking ; simply basking in the contentment 
of warmth and full stomachs. George went outside; the 
wind rushed by off the side of the moor, and it was very 
dark. He could see the light in Uncle’s bedroom window, 
a small glimmer of smokiness. If there had been any 
sound he would hardly have heard it. He wondered if 
Ursula had come horne ; John was probably insensible by 
then. What an awful life, had they only known it; a 
life leading down to some dreadful depths of spiritual 
consciousness in a future state, if they were not too gross 
to outlive death. Surely Bubo was better than the Pethe- 
ricks; the very fact that he didn’t know how to behave 
vilely seemed to give the owl a sort of predominance over 
such as John, Ursula, and Jimmy, the ugly growths of 
Wheal Dream. 

George went back thinking of Uncle. Somehow there 
seemed to be an unpleasant connection between Bubo’s 
screams and the patient old man who had not the strength 
to protect himself. 

“ This lonely place is far noisier than the heart of 
London is now,” he wrote. ” The wind howls, and under- 
neath my window the water dashes down and past the 
wheal; and with that in his ears old Uncle will die. I 
can see the light in his window, one small lamp, its 
glass coated with soot, standing on the ledge and giving 
less light than a candle. I know the room; very small, 
with low roof sloping on both sides, no carpet, the walls 
stained with coppery green patches ; in the centre the 
bed with the old man and his money-box. He can see 
nothing except that dirty lamp and the shadows which 
it makes. He will never see anything else until he 
becomes a shadow himself. He will never leave that 
room alive. How sadly the poor live and how terribly 
they die I But much of Uncle’s poverty is of his own 
choosing; he could afford a better home and a house- 


About the Festival of Cups 363 

keeper, only he is so afraid of letting his little yellow birds 
emigrate. It is a pity money does not decay when put 
away in a box ; Uncle has just enough to be too little ; 
just enough to be afraid of spending it all before he 
dies.” 

Bubo continued to imagine himself Othello murdering 
his wife, or Achilles dragging Hector round the walls of 
Troy. He and his master were night-birds, full of life in 
the dark and dull in the morning ; and in the meantime 
Christmas was being celebrated in the two houses on the 
Stannary road ; only the wind prevented the sound of 
their revelry from reaching the Wheal House. 

Jimmy indeed spent the festival without the slightest 
noise, being afraid of arousing Uncle’s terror and bring- 
ing John upon the scene. The boy felt pretty sure John 
meant to murder him, and the method would certainly be 
brutal; he perceived that he must get away at once, to 
enjoy a life of ease elsewhere, and he was ready to go 
now that Uncle was unable to work for him. He had no 
friend except Ursula; Bill reviled him and Bessie pushed 
him about, and he was too weak to hit the woman back. 
Besides, Wheal Dream was cold and dreary; Jimmy 
wanted a town where it would be possible to pose as one 
out of employment, and to enjoy warm streets, a cheap 
music-hall, and little girls. There was a bestial cunning 
beneath all that flabby flesh. He believed Uncle had quite 
;^7o in the money-box; the wind was very noisy, the 
Pethericks were drunk ; it was not only necessary to act 
at once, but no better opportunity could have been given ; 
the night mail would carry him away, if he could only 
struggle across the moor to the station with his illegitim- 
ate baggage in his arms, and the train would be almost 
empty, as it was Christmas night. Chapel Ford was 
flooded, the military road was too far round, and the wind 
would be awful up there; he would have to go down by 
the lanes and chance being seen. 

He took up a stick, but put it down. Uncle was very 
weak, and the pillow would do all that was necessary. 
He crept up to the bedroom. There was no light in the 
living-room ; even the fire had died out. It seemed 
horribly cold, and his fat hands were shaking. He could 
hear Bubo play-acting; Uncle heard the noise too, and 


Heather 


364 

thought he was in the place of owls and wind and 
darkness. 

“ How be ye, Uncle?” said the boy. His voice was 
shrill no longer, but husky. 

The old man had his dim eyes fixed upon the equally 
dim lamp which he imagined was the moon rising upon 
the tors enveloped in cloud. He didn’t know it was 
Christmas. He thought it was summer and the green 
stains upon the wall opposite were banks of grass, and 
the wind was the river running below his feet. He was 
fairly strong ; not going to die yet ; but his mind was partly 
paralysed like his body, and he turned queer at nights. 

” Aw, it be proper up here on Dartmoor,” he said. “ I 
be right on the top, wi’ a gurt rock on each side o’ me, 
and the heather be main soft to lie on. Up and down I 
goes wi’ the wind. Now I be down, and here I goes up 
again. ’Tis fine up here, but I gets fearful o’ being trod 
on by one o’ these ponies, and there be a gurt bullock 
yonder snorting. Hear ’en ! A-blowing through his nose 
and hitting hisself wi’ his tail. Get home, wull ye, yew 
old bulloc£” 

Jimmy came to the side of the bed and put his hand 
under, feeling up and down for the money-box. This 
was one of the rocks between which Uncle thought he 
was lying, and the other rock was the Bible. Uncle felt 
the hand, which was the one thing he had always been 
afraid of having in his bed, and he turned his head, saw 
the boy, shivered and struggled with his memory, and at 
last he whispered — 

‘‘ Yew’m Jimmy.” 

” Come on. Uncle, let’s ha’ these old things out o’ the 
bed, so’s yew’ll lie comfortable,” the boy muttered. 

‘‘I be a cruel long way from Wheal Dream. I wur a 
silly old vule to come out on Dartmoor. Du ’ye get home, 
Jimmy, and let me bide,” Uncle whispered. 

” Get off ’en.” 

” What be doing? Get down, Jimmy, and us will 
pray. Our Vaither which art in Heaven along ” 

” Yew’m as heavy as a lot of old stone. Tak’ your 
hand off ’en, wull ye?” 

” He bain’t here, Jimmy. I put ’en among the rocks. 
Get home, Jimmy.” 


About the Festival of Cups 365 

‘‘ Here ’tis. Let go, Unde. Do as I tull ye now.” 

“He bain’t here, Jimmy, and if ’tis he’m empty. 
Jimmy boy, what be doing? Yew ha’ cost I pounds and 
pounds, aw, and shilluns tu, and us ha’ got nought to live 
on now. Gentleman,” piped poor old Uncle feebly. “ Go 
and ask the gentleman to come and I’ll give ye sixpence.” 

Jimmy rolled him over at last and grabbed the box; but 
a skinny old hand clung to it like a bramble. 

“ Let go,” he sobbed. “ ’Tis funeral money in him and 
nought else. Tak’ the Bible, Jimmy. He’m a butiful Bible 
and vull o’ pictures.” 

Uncle was not putting off his religion though he was 
fighting for his money. Bibles were inexpensive, and he 
could buy another; but the loss of the box would leave 
him dependent upon charity until rents were due again. 

A Bible was about the last thing Jimmy wanted. The 
time had come for stronger measures, as there was no 
unclasping that tenacious hand. He caught the pillow, 
forced it over the ugly old head, dropped across it, and 
went on tugging at the box. There was a heaving move- 
ment below his chest, a harsh murmuring sound; and 
then the fingers relaxed and the box came away. Jimmy 
lurched across the room, blew out the lamp, and groped 
for the door. 

As he went down he heard noises, and soon there came 
a thud upon the floor, followed by other sounds. Uncle 
had pulled himself out of bed and was dragging himself 
across the floor, as if he was trying to imitate Bubo’s 
noises. The boy wrapped his prize to the baby’s body, 
caught the burden up, and made off, splashing through 
mud and water, and did not stop until he was well away 
on the common. 

Resting until his breath came back, he went on again. 
Fortunately for him it was all down hill, but still it de- 
manded no mean feat of endurance to reach the station 
with the baby and box, and the mere fact that Jimmy 
accomplished it showed that he could have worked had he 
liked. Securing one’s own ends gives labour a wonderful 
easiness. Several times Jimmy thought he was done, 
and once he came very near stuffing the baby into the 
hedge and leaving it; but his love for the degenerate 
little weakling prevailed. Had the infant been a male he 


Heather 


366 

would certainly have done for it, but its sex made it a 
thing for the boy to love. The time had almost come for 
him to part from it, but he was going to make sure that 
it would be well taken care of, and he could easily replace 
the loss by getting another. He had grown so fond of 
nursing babies that he would have been miserable without 
one. 

Almost in the last stage of exhaustion he reached the 
station, making the baby look as much like an ordinary 
bundle as possible. There was hardly need for much 
precaution, as nobody was about, except a sleepy porter 
waiting for the mail. Jimmy bought a ticket to Ply- 
mouth, sniggering to himself with joy. Pursuit was 
impossible, as Uncle could not tell the story until Bessie 
went in to him the next morning. All the great criminal 
possibilities of a low and bestial life were open to Jimmy, 
and he rejoiced at the thought. The train was practically 
empty, and he had no difficulty in finding an unoccupied 
compartment, where he could rest and complete his ar- 
rangements. Near Devonport he kissed and fondled the 
sleeping child, denuded it of one small wrap, which he 
required to put round the money-box so that no policeman 
should stop him and ask questions ; and then he drew the 
blinds down, and when the train stopped slipped out, 
leaving the child to be discovered by some official, sent to 
the workhouse, and adopted by the ratepayer. Jimmy had 
his wits about him though he was a mass of lustful flesh. 
He knew how easily a cunning rascal can live and breed 
his own low species, and never own or earn a penny, 
because the country overflows with charity enough to em- 
barrass idlers and drunkards, but has nothing to give 
those who lead honest and sober lives except a lodging 
with the scum of the earth. Jimmy was clever enough 
for his generation. That night he could get a room, and 
the first train on Boxing Day would carry him up to 
London ; and there he could lose himself, get some young 
girl to live with him — that he also knew was easy — and 
when weary of her he could get another, and so on until 
Uncle’s money was exhausted. By that time his cunning 
would have supplied him with some other methods where- 
by he might idle in comfort; and if the worst came, 
charity would always see to it that an unfortunate young 


About the Festival of Cups 367 

British workman need neither work nor maintain the 
degenerate spawn which he might bring into the world. 
Jimmy only hoped that every Christmas Day would be 
equally successful. 

Bubo and Brunacombe remained in ignorance of the 
exodus of Jimmy and his brat, for Uncle could not descend 
the stairs and his feeble cries from the window of the 
smoking lamp were ridiculed by the wind. Such a poor 
thing is the human voice when Nature is shouting. Uncle 
was in for a night of agony. Neither did the partners at 
the sign of the one-legged owl know about the return of 
Ursula. She came from the village after Jimmy had gone, 
full of false fire and courage, and prepared to proclaim 
her doctrine of freedom, of free-rights and free-love, and 
no law human or divine at the back of them. She was 
very drunk, and when in that condition her face became 
a deep, dirty scarlet, and her wet eyes like half-filled ink- 
pots. She crossed the common, laughing and flinging her 
arms about, and dribbling down her sealskin jacket. She 
got down to Wheal Dream and tumbled into her home 
with a merry noise. 

Father was in his usual corner and John was sprawling 
over the table, his broken hat still jammed on the back 
of his head, which was lying among the unwashed crockery ; 
his hands were filthy. He was sufficiently conscious to 
remember what had happened, and he retained enough 
control over his limbs to arise and stagger and strike a 
blow or two. He couldn’t speak; that was a difficult 
accomplishment when sober, and, in his then condition, he 
could only manage incoherent noises like a hog with its 
nose in a trough. Father was trying to sing pious hymns 
and drink whisky, and not succeeding very well in either, 
as he had no memory for words nor ear for a tune, and 
when he took a sip from the glass, not enjoying it much 
but doing his duty on Christmas Day, the hot liquor made 
him cough, and he would squirt it out of his mouth and 
nose and then gasp for breath. Every sip was good 
physical exercise for the old man ; quite as hard work as 
walking to the linhay and back. It was long past his 
usual bedtime, but he was sitting up that night as a 
matter of custom. 

“ Johnnie,” he croaked to the half-conscious shape lying 


368 Heather 

across the table, “ I be main cruel sorry Ursula ha’ turned 
actress. ” 

The smoke from the peat poured out into the kitchen, 
which was a sign that the door had been opened. Father 
was enveloped in the cloud and could see nothing dis- 
tinctly; but he was aware that his daughter had returned, 
and he heard a noise of deep breathing and nailed boots 
sliding upon the stones. Then Ursula came upon him 
with such violence that his head was knocked against the 
wall and his glass of good-cheer was demolished. 

“ Du ’ye behave proper, woman,” he shouted as well 
as he could for coughing ; and then John was upon him 
too, feeling for Ursula that he might throw her some- 
where else. He wanted to get her head against something 
hard, the hearthstone for choice, only he could not obtain 
a firm hold ; and the red fire and the black walls seemed 
to be buzzing round him, and the floor was in wild motion 
like the country seen from thfe windows of a train, sliding 
past, heaving up and down. Smoke was everywhere ; 
Ursula screamed and cursed, declaring herself a free 
woman with a free body; John groaned and laboured for 
vengeance; while Father, who was very cross indeed, 
begged them to behave and sit round the fire homely like. 

” Don’t ye be so rude, Johnnie,” he kept on shouting. 

John was far ruder before he had done. He caught 
Ursula at last and thumped her on the head until she 
stopped screaming. His great fist fell always on the 
same place, with a horrid noise, until it seemed a wonder 
the skull was not dented like his own hat. She fell from 
him at length, upon the heap of turnips just behind Father, 
and sprawled there unconscious ; while John staggered to 
the table and fell across it, crashing among the dishes, in 
much the same condition as his wife, the breath roaring 
from his wide-open mouth. Poor John had been born a 
low and simple creature ; brutality had been almost thrust 
upon him. A good woman would have raised him, 
educated him, made a home for him ; and Wheal Dream 
would then have become a happy and smiling place. He 
had endured Ursula too long. He was like one of those 
black stalks of heather, hardly worthy to be called heather, 
which appear at the edge of a peat-bog, deeply rooted in 
mud, but barren and rotting slowly year by year. 


About the Festival of Cups 369 

Father went on sitting by the fire, but he was in a rage. 
John’s conduct had been outrageous, and Ursula was his 
daughter. He did not care what she had done; the man 
had no right to thump her on the head. Father muttered 
and spat about him furiously. Then he got up, stood 
leaning on his sticks for a few moments, and presently 
shuffled to the other side of the fire-place. A coal-hammer 
was lying there, and the old man picked it up after many 
attempts, made his way to John’s side and judged him 
vindictively through his spectacles. John was on a chair, 
his arms thrown about the table, and his head lying upon 
it. Father pushed the plates and dishes aside; he didn’t 
want to break any of them as he considered they belonged 
to him. Then he moved John’s head, because it was not 
in a good position, as a butcher might shift a piece of 
meat upon his block, and struck it with the hammer. 
John quivered and gave a howl, but he was too far gone 
to move, and Father tapped again with his weak arms, 
finding the sensation a pleasing one and reminiscent of 
the bramble. Presently John’s breathing became more 
irregular, and the old man felt satisfied that justice had 
been done. He shuffled back to the dying fire and sat 
down, feeling rather dull with so much silent company 
about him, and wanting to get a little warmth into his 
old bones before climbing up to bed. Father remembered 
this might be his last Christmas upon earth, and the 
thought made him feel doleful. 

The wind was more noisy than ever over Wheal Dream, 
and Bubo was the only one of its inhabitants who made 
himself heard. Nobody could hear lonely George, read- 
ing aloud the long letter which he had written only to be 
destroyed ; or lonely Uncle, praying and sobbing for some 
one to come to him; or lonely Father, rounding off his 
Christmas with the simple hymn — 

“ Us be but little children weak.” 


24 


CHAPTER XX 


ABOUT SMOKE 

One back street of a city differs hardly at all from 
another. One house may be more select than its neigh- 
bours, possess a cleaner doorstep, a greater wealth of 
dingy curtains, a healthier group of pot-plants blocking 
up its window, or even an attempt at a garden in the cat 
and sparrow territory behind the rails ; but the same 
polluted atmosphere is over them all. 

Plymouth is merely London printed on the west in 
smaller type. All cities are uniform and the name of each 
street is monotony, however the builder may try to flatter 
them with his prosaic falsehoods. Down into these streets 
are always flocking a mysterious and restless crowd of 
lodgers, who come and go like rooks to a ploughed field, 
seeking for what they can find, and without a single 
encumbrance except each other and one small clothes- 
box. Some of these people are almost bewildered when 
they are asked their name. It is so unnecessary to own 
such a thing in a city where only the question of sex 
seems to be of much importance. A man swinging over 
the moor with his head up and the wind whistling in his 
ears is a force of nature and something rather fine; but 
bring him into a city and he vanishes, or is only visible 
in the ridiculous aspect of one more fly sprawling in 
the honey-pot, which looked and smelt seductive at a 
distance but contains more poison than honey, after the 
manner of fly-traps. It’s a carnivorous monster, the city. 
It keeps on calling for strong men to do the work, be- 
cause its own children are so thin and smoke-dried; and 
the countrymen hurry in eager to pick up the gold and 
look at the peep-shows; and the town lets them endure 
for three generations; and then calls for more, like the 

370 


About Smoke 


371 


farmer’s wife appealing to her ducks, “ Dilly, dilly,” and 
a sharp knife behind* her back. 

Tomkins Street was one out of many, known to the 
policeman and postman and those who had the misfor- 
tune to dwell therein. Tomkins was a builder who had 
done wonders in his time, and had called dirty streets and 
rows of sordid houses out of a chaos of daisy-sprinkled 
fields. There were Jemima and Kezia streets also, named 
after his wife and daughter; the mark of Tomkins was 
over the entire district; but to his latest works Biblical 
names were given. Tomkins was becoming stricken in 
years, and it occurred to him that it was time to make 
his peace with Heaven, which seemed a simpler matter 
than extorting rent from impecunious tenants. Beth- 
lehem Street and Galilee Terrace fully attested to the con- 
version of Tomkins, and were regarded by him as such 
works of supererogation that he felt justified in taking 
a little back for himself by constructing them of unusually 
cheap and flimsy materials. 

Tomkins Street was largely given over to lodgings, or 
apartments as they were styled ; and most of them were 
crowded, although there was one room in each house 
which was only aired about once a quarter, and hardly ever 
entered, because that room was the temple dedicated to 
respectability, and was indeed so stuffed with useless 
furniture that there was no space left for more than a 
single human presence. In one of the rooms near the 
top of one of these houses Winnie was lying on a hard 
and bumpy sofa, declaring she couldn’t, and her mother 
was standing over her saying she must. The trouble was 
over a glass of milk. 

“ I can’t this morning. Mummy. It will make me 
sick. ” 

“ Come along. Shut your eyes and gulp it down.” 

” No, dear. Leave it beside me and I’ll try presently. 

It’s no good anyhow — horrid town stuff. Mummy : 

Oh!” 

” Don’t cough so, my darling.” 

” Won’t the window open a little more? But nothing 
comes in except smoke. Oh, for one breath of the wind 
across the heather.” 

” You must try and go out, Winnie.” 


Heather 


372 

“ I’m going when the days get warmer. ’ ’ 

“ Now drink the milk.” 

” I’ll sip at it when I’m alone. Give me my picture. 
It helps me to breathe.” 

Mrs. Shazell brought the picture of the waterfall in 
St. Michael’s Wood, and Winnie placed it on her lap. 
She seemed to see the bracken swaying and the drops of 
spray quivering on the long grasses and to smell the white 
violets upon the hidden bank. That was a sacred place, 
her dreamland, where she had watched that wonderful 
head, where those wonderful hands had painted her; and 
she would never see place or painter again, never follow 
that rocky pathway beside the river beneath the great 
green precipice, never cross the Ford or feel her feet 
sinking into that delicious soft peat; and never climb the 
tors to eat one small mouthful of wind. 

” Darling, don’t yawn so,” pleaded her mother in an 
agonised voice. That horrible yawning was worse than 
the cough. 

” I do try, but I can’t stop it. Mummy,” said Winnie 
cheerfully, ” is there any pink on my face?” 

“Oh yes, dear;” and so there was, on both cheeks, 
but it was not the wind-blown pink. 

They occupied three rooms at the top of the house. 
Little light, but plenty of warm smoke, entered the street, 
and it was January, the darkest and smokiest month. The 
houses on the other side were higher and intercepted what 
light and air there was. The place was fairly quiet by 
day, but when the lodgers came home there was noise 
enough. Just below lived a couple who were intemperate 
in their habits and passions; and they often spent the 
night cursing one another. It was not the noise which 
was withering Winnie but the atmosphere, that dense 
mass of smoke-cloud which pressed always upon the 
street, cutting it off for ever from purity and sunlight. 

“ You must get her away,” said the doctor to Mrs. 
wShazell. “ Take her to the coast. She won’t live long 
here;’[ but when Halfacre was appealed to, he said 
statistics showed plainly that by far the greater part of 
the population of the country dwelt in large towns, and 
therefore it must be the most natural way of living. It 
had also been shown, he added, that carbonic acid gas 


About Smoke 


373 

was beneficial rather than harmful to the human system, 
and if his wife could not stand it she was plainly unfitted 
to survive. 

As a matter of fact he couldn’t stand it himself, but 
he attributed his own bad symptoms to overwork. There 
was so much to be done; such a vast amount of writing, 
printing, talk and organisation in connection with the 
cause of liberty; such a quantity of wind had to be blown 
into the bladder before it burst; and the winter was an 
exceptionally busy time, as the grown-up Jimmies of 
the towns could no longer sprawl in some one’s field or 
upon somebody’s haystack — setting it alight when they 
had done with it — and they naturally desired some one 
else’s fireside to sprawl by. Half acre was hard at work 
trying to secure them these necessaries, killing himself 
over it because he felt he had received the divine com- 
mission to reclaim the fallen ; he was sent to be a leader 
of men, a blatant, illogical redeemer, a dangerous and 
crazy Messiah. He was in the employment of various 
revolutionary societies, and the police kept an eye upon 
him because foreign anarchists who styled themselves 
political refugees had been seen in his company. Just 
then he was engaged upon a pamphlet headed, “ Bomb- 
throwing. A Justification.” The rich and idle must be 
frightened somehow. He wrote well, and unfortunately 
believed in what he said; and this inflammatory literature 
was to be circulated among the working classes. Nature 
herself pointed the way; she makes a landscape with an 
earthquake; a man could clear away a lot of injustice 
with a bomb in each pocket. 

“Wife,” he cried, breaking in upon Winnie, “come 
along and do something. I want you to make a hundred 
copies of this letter. You can do fifty to-day.” 

“ I can’t, Richard. I am too ill,” she said. 

“ Nonsense. What is illness but a form of laziness? 
The doctor tells me I am ill, but I laugh at him. We 
must work for the cause, drop down dead for it. You 
do nothing. Come on.” 

“ If I get up I shall be sick.” 

“This is moral weakness. Do as I tell you, wife,” 
he said, approaching the sofa, taking her wrist and begin- 
ning to drag her up. Winnie knew she must obey. She 


Heather 


374 

had been in his power from that day he had practically 
claimed her under the setting sun upon the marshes, to 
the day he had hurried her, unwilling and protesting to 
the end, to the registry office and had made her the wife 
of a son of the people. What chance had the poor, weak 
growth against the destroying storm-wind? The calm, 
healing wind was not there, and never could be, in the 
valley of that smoke. It was up along St. Michael’s Wood 
blowing the spray across the waterfall and between the 
oak-trees, where George Brunacombe, who represented it, 
was painting his little pictures and longing for her, but 
only finding her when he went down into the valley of 
dreams. 

So she had to sit at a little table and copy a pesti- 
lential document between coughs and shivers, while her 
husband darted here and there attacking one subject after 
another. He regarded Winnie as an instrument, like a 
pen, to be used and broken, then replaced by another; he 
hardly remembered she was pretty and had all those excel- 
lent failings which make a woman sweet and lovable; 
but he knew that as a female she was not much use; 
and as he watched her struggling with the hateful task 
he expressed his feelings. 

“ I was a fool to marry you, wife.” He never called 
her by her name; ” Why didn’t you refuse me?” 

Winnie made no reply. Her head was resting upon 
one hand while she tried to write with the other. She had 
long ago discovered how illogical and unreasonable he 
was, that no answer satisfied him. He pulled her arm 
away, told her not to be silly and affected, and to reply 
when he spoke to her. He was not unkind, at least he 
thought not, but women must be obedient and resign 
themselves to the law as made by their husbands. 

” I did refuse you, as many times as I could, but you 
would not listen. Don’t worry me, Richard.” 

” You foolish woman. This is all wrong, and half the 
words are left out.” He snatched up the sheet which 
she was half fainting over, tore it up and replaced it by 
another, muttering, ” What a bargain ! what a miserably 
bad bargain!” while Winnie dropped the pen, making 
a grievous blot upon the fresh sheet, and began to cry 
with pathetic little yawns in between. 


About Smoke 


375 

“There you are again, wasting time, paper and 
money.” He forgot she was wasting herself, but he did 
not wish to be unjust. “ Wife, I can’t afford you. I 
must get some one else,” he went on wildly. “ I bought 
you for fifty pounds,” he cried, dragging out a memoran- 
dum book and shaking his head furiously at the figures. 
“ It is too much. You are not worth it.” 

“You did not. If you say such a thing again I will 
leave you,” sobbed Winnie. 

“ I agreed to pay Hawker the money he had spent 
on you, and we fixed the price at fifty pounds. I 
promised to pay five shillings a week ; and the blackguard 
follows me about the streets with his dirty gang, shouting 
at me, reviling me ; and he sends you scurrilous post- 
cards. Then there is your mother, who apart from her 
cooking is absolutely useless. Not a word of sympathy 
has she ever expressed for the cause, and she costs me 
five shillings a week as well. I shall tell Hawker he can 
have you both for thirty shillings.” 

“ We are married,” moaned Winnie. 

“ That is the foolish part of it. We ought to have lived 
together first, and then we should have found out we 
were not suited to each other and could have separated 
without any trouble. This law of matrimony is the first 
we must change. You are no good to me, wife. You 
are always weak and ill. You give me no help in my 
work as you promised ” 

“ Richard, don’t tell lies,” cried she, trying to stand up 
for her poor, defenceless little self. 

“ You did,” he said angrily. “ All you wanted was a 
home for yourself and your mother, and you couldn’t stand 
that Hawker.” 

“ This is a home !” sobbed Winnie. 

“ What more could any woman want? Three rooms, 
comfortably furnished,” said the besotted man. “ There 
will be wealth some day when we have educated the 
people. The elevation of the working class, and then 
what people call anarchy, every man his own law-maker. 
Working men form the immense majority of the popula- 
tion,” he shouted. “ We have only to weld all those 
units into one mass and set it rolling towards our ideal 
and we must win. Nothing could stand against that 


Heather 


376 

force. It would rule, not only this country, but more 
than a quarter of the whole world. And we are winning, ” 
he went on wildly, forgetting he was only haranguing his 
utterly useless wife. ” We are reducing the hours of labour 
by law, so that working men shall have more leisure for 
studying the questions of the day and preparing them- 
selves for government. We are opening an intellectual 
mine which is inexhaustible, for the labourer has never 
been weakened by luxury. Half the great men who have 
played leading parts in the history of the world started 
life as slaves. We have only to raise our democracy of 
labour into an aristocracy of intellect, to convert the 
scattered atoms into a solid whole which shall be deaf 
to the dishonest tongues of political agents, and then we 
shall hear no more the pitiful story of walking twenty 
miles a day in search of the right to work.” 

It was extraordinary that a man clever in some things 
should be so great a fool in others. Halfacre’s precious 
doctrine was not worth the breath that uttered it. With 
all his reading did he not know that there was a time 
when the artisan ruled the country in all that was noblest 
and best? when his was the career of special honour, and 
his distinctive dress brushed the robes of royalty? It 
was the mere labourer who built the cathedrals, carved 
their woodwork, stained their windows, illuminated their 
missals. It was the artisan who was at the head of 
everything except the one crude art of wielding the battle- 
axe; and even he designed and manufactured the axe, 
and then contrived the mail which could withstand it. 
The mighty have fallen indeed ; and Halfacre supposed 
this giant could be revived and given a mad political kind 
of strength; not asking himself what affinity there could 
be between the plain man of intellect who devoted all that 
was in him to his art, who carved the stonework in some 
unseen cathedral gallery with the same care and finish 
that he bestowed upon the visible work above the altar, 
and the beer-swilling lout whose ambition it is to do no 
work at all; between quiet men who devoted their whole 
energies to the creation of one masterpiece, and those 
who devote theirs to getting shorter hours and yelling 
themselves mad at football matches. 

A burial of manhood was more likely to happen than 


About Smoke 


377 

a crucifixion of law and a resurrection of communism. 
Halfacre and his associates were not sane, but obsessed 
with fixed ideas morally insane. They were really solitary 
being's in a crowd, not atoms helping to bind the mysteri- 
ous whole together, but disintegrating forces at war with 
each other and themselves, making ropes of sand, scatter- 
ing what they sought to bind. Characters subject to one 
fixed idea are usually destroyed by it because it over- 
masters the reason. They passed out of the region of 
common-sense and daylight, and entered one of complete 
fantasy and night, mistaking the feeble glimmer of hardly 
visible moonlight for the noon-day sun. They mistook the 
movement about them for advance, when it was simply 
movement like the aimless restlessness of the sea. They 
hoped the country would go mad in their favour, and they 
knew that the spirit of the age is a tyrant when it chooses 
to assert itself ; but they did not know that a revolution 
is generally a sign, and the last desperate venture, of 
weakness. Revolution and decadence are invariably hand 
m hand. The best possible form of government is a 
tyranny, they said, and they were right — only the tyrant 
must be a God. 

Halfacre himself was merely a man unlike others. He 
had always been so, from the time when the little, dark, 
wfild-eyed child had made the other children of the village 
jeer at him by pointing to a “ stinkweed ” and giving it 
a Latin name, until that day when the police watched 
his movements because his name was upon their list of 
dangerous persons. Halfacre had nothing but his 
abnormal brain ; nothing behind to help him, neither cul- 
ture nor heredity. Charity hadi trained him ; he had 
won a public-school scholarship, and there he had been 
alone because he w^as unlike his companions ; again at 
Oxford he won scholarships, and still he was alone and 
for the same reason ; and being then thrust into the 
w’orld he became an enemy of society, a mind off its 
balance, a troubled spirit which could not find its resting- 
place. His mind was in the shadow world and his life 
groped frantically after; he became aggressive to the 
point of insanity, continually repeating his single idea of 
liberty for himself and others equally oppressed; believ- 
ing that those above him had no ambition except to 


Heather 


378 

persecute and torment him ; hopelessly deluded by a sense 
of his own powers and greatness ; and sometimes sobbing 
pitifully because the common people did not show much 
enthusiasm for him as their redeemer. With all that he 
had the vices of the lowest class, a foul tongue some- 
times, an animal kind of sensuousness, a trick of being 
cruel, not for the sake of being so, but because it seemed 
the only way in which he could assert his power. It is 
not good for a man to be too much unlike his fellows. 

How different was Winnie ! The breath of Nature was 
blowing over her. She flourished only in the wind across 
the heather and in the blessed sunlight fresh and warm 
from Life’s own presence with no pollution of man’s 
making in between. To her the cruel and artificial land- 
scape of streets and chimneys meant death ; she was for 
the open places, the rivers and rocks, the glad and 
perpetually sweet earth smells of the woods, the romance 
of unspoilt lands, and a plot of untilled soil to grow in. 
The natural and the false had been joined together in 
Tomkins Street, and something higher than Tomkins 
would part them asunder. 

“I’m going up to London soon,’’ said Halfacre. “ We 
want money, and are going to organise processions to 
parade the principal streets with the usual catchpenny 
cry of no employment. It is not dignified, but it never 
fails. The sentimental are on our side. If you only 
had some energy you might come with us,’’ he said 
impatiently. “You could make yourself of some use, 
for you can look pathetic when you try, and you might 
collect a good deal. Go on with those letters, do. It 
makes my blood boil to see you sitting all the day idle.’’ 

Halfacre’s blood boiled for curious reasons ; the sight 
of an old man living in comfort after fifty years hard 
work sent it up to fever heat; it was normal when he was 
organising a procession of men who were unemployed 
partly because they would not consent to be anything else 
and partly because they were not worth employing. 
Laziness was no sin in such men, but in his wife it was 
a grievous fault. She was lying there with her pretty 
head on her arm ; such a thin arm. 

“ Mummy,’’ she called like a sick child when he came 
and shook her. 


About Smoke 


379 


“ We must separate, wife. I must get a woman, one 
with some life in her. That for the marriage law,” he 
said, blowing his cheeks out. “I am tired of fooling 
with a doll.” 

Winnie hardly heard him. She was too ill, and he 
always spoke quickly. 

“Wasting my life,” he went on; “no help to me at 
all, no pity for the oppressed; and I am paying five 
shillings a week for you. I could have hired some one 

for that. What a fool I was to think you were any 

good. ” 

“ Open the window. I can’t breathe,” gasped Winnie. 
“ I won’t die,” she murmured to herself in the same 

old way. Life still contained happiness. It must be 

so, because it had not yet come to her. Let the storm- 
wind blow as it liked, she would hang on. 

‘ ‘ There she goes again — more of that horrible non- 
sense, ” Halfacre shouted, going to the fire and poking 
the smoky coals to make the room more stuffy. “ Open 
windows in January. That’s how the doctors tried to kill 
me when I had a cold on my chest. Come here, wife,” 
for Winnie was faltering towards the door. “Was there 
ever a leader of men who could manage his own house- 
hold?” he muttered. 

“ Let me go. I must. I am so bad,” she pleaded, 
when Halfacre caught her with a rough, awkward hand, 
to drag her back to work; but he would not listen — 
that folly must be conquered or she would never be of 
any use — and dragged the weak, thin girl towards the 
table until the door opened and Mrs. Shazell entered. 
She was a small, fragile lady, still wonderfully pretty, 
but very sad-looking, and she often added to Winnie’s 
troubles by upbraiding her for having done so badly for 
herself; first Hawker, then Halfacre, the first and second 
men that came along; why couldn’t the girl be more 
resolute? She was kind enough then, seeing that her 
daughter was worse than usual and stifled with gulps of 
smoke, first from the street, then from the grate. The 
only way to manage Halfacre was to shout at him. This 
the lady did, and he gave way and let them go, muttering 
something about the excessive price he was paying for an 
altogether worthless wife. 


Heather 


380 

A certain amount of peace followed ; the leader of men 
went off to London, and in his absence things happened. 
The first was a thunderbolt in the form of a letter, 
addressed to “ Mrs. halfacre ” in an extremely illiterate 
hand, and so badly written as to be hardly decipherable. 
The writer was one Emily Halfacre, who claimed to be 
Richard’s sister, although she was not proud of the 
relationship, seeing that the purport of her letter was to 
inform Winnie that the man was a kind of devil, and if 
she was really married to the creature Emily was sorry 
for her. His family had done what they could for him 
in his childhood, but since grand people had taken him 
up he was much too proud to visit them ; and though he 
was probably making plenty of money, he hadn’t sent 
a single penny to his old father, who was so crippled 
that he could hardly get through a day’s work, and would 
soon have to go on the parish. They had always sup- 
posed Richard was a madman, but their clergyman 
declared he was a genius and they ought to be proud 
of him. Emily, however, knew no conceit in the matter, 
and she was rude enough to write that if she could 
get near her brother she would fling a bucket of dirty 
water from the duck-pond over him. 

Winnie kept this letter to show her husband, but her 
mother never saw it. It would only have made a storm, 
and the poor lady would have sobbed herself ill and been 
incapable for days. Probably it was some malicious trick 
on the part of a village girl Halfacre had fooled with. 
He couldn’t be that — the son of a labourer, for he was 
an Oxford man and a scholar ; and yet Winnie remem- 
bered how fearfully he had always disgusted her, from 
the very first night, when he had gone to bed with half 
his clothes on ; he had been actually angry when she 
begged him to take a bath at least once a month, and 
not to wear the same underclothing more than a fortnight. 
She did not answer that letter; she could not send her 
dainty handwriting into a miserable cottage home, and 
possibly create a regular correspondence of hateful know- 
ledge. Poverty and illness had made her common enough, 
but she was still the doctor of Princetown’s daughter, 
and not, good heavens ! not the sister-in-law of that dirty- 
fingered and illiterate “ Emly halfacre.” There seemed 


About Smoke 381 

a horrible stench in the room as she stuffed that dis- 
graceful letter away. 

After that a delicious kind of dream walk was allowed 
Winnie. She got out as much as she could, and walked 
on the Hoe, where she could breathe a little. She felt 
a different girl when outside, and it was such a relief 
to get away from noisome Tomkins Street and the dwell- 
ings which people occupied only to avoid, keeping on 
the streets as much as possible, spending the evenings 
at common entertainments or in the beerhouses, because 
any place was preferable to home. One evening — it was 
always evening that time of year — she was fluttering along 
wearily’ between parallel lines of glaring shops, when she 
became conscious that her tired eyes had received grati- 
fication ; and immediately she was thinking of St. 
Michael’s Wood and the Ford, and the waving bracken, 
and all the magnificent sights and smells of real dream- 
land. The vision had been caused by a picture shop. 
How warm the colours looked from that cold street; and 
in the centre, upon an easel, in the place of honour, was 
the Ford, and she herself was about to cross, but linger- 
ing and afraid, because she did not know what awaited 
her on the other side. Of course it was she, though 
the features were altered somewhat, but not the nose. 
And the picture was signed in the corner with a tiny one- 
legged owl ; and there was a title painted on the frame 
—“Lost.” 

People were drifting about as usual, and some stopped 
a few moments before the window, not because they were 
artistic, but the interior looked warm and inviting. A 
commercial traveller came along with his bag of samples, 
bending and coughing into his large hand, and he stopped 
to get his breath. It was Gumm going his rounds again, 
trying to keep the home intact, breaking up rapidly. He 
did not notice Winnie, as others were between them, 
and she did not even glance in his direction, for she was 
miles away. She was draggled, feeling too ill to be 
tidy, and possibly if they had faced each other Gumm 
would not have recognised the dainty girl whom he had 
known in the sanatorium. He had forgetful eyes ; he 
did not even recognise the Ford, across which he had 
passed many a time. 


Heather 


382 

“Poor young thing! Don’t she look sad?’’ said a 
weary-looking woman, with a bottle of gin and a baby in 
her arms. 

“Ah,” said the man at her side, who was carrying 
nothing except a large pipe in his mouth. “ She’s in 
trouble, like most of us.” 

“ What’s she lost, then?” asked the woman. 

“ Lost her way, I reckon,” the husband answered. 

“ Lost her bloke, more likely,” said Gumm, in husky 
tones. His throat was affected now, and his voice was 
going; and for him the day of vulgar jokes was drawing 
to a close. “ She’s parted from him there, maybe, and 
knows she won’t ever see him again. Lost,” muttered 
Gumm, and with that word he lurched away, tugging at 
his pack, and disappeared, still coughing, in the crowd. 

Those people passed on and others came, lingered, and 
went on too, but Winnie was still there. Why had he 
painted her, and with such pathos on her face? She 
had never looked like that to him. Why not Berenice, 
who had a much finer face? It seemed to her as if that 
figure had been painted by a lover, so tender was every 
touch. Then it became blurred, and all the pictures in 
the window were one big blot of colour, because her 
eyes were tender too. 

Winnie passed on, almost happy, though she was 
married to a wretch; and singing as she went her usual 
song, “ I will not die.” She would not be miserable. 
She was the child of luck, who must win in the end, 
who simply cannot be beaten because she is destined to 
win happiness in spite of everything; the dreamland child 
who must pass through all the horrors of falling and yet 
never reach the bottom, who must struggle through every 
sort of terror short of death itself, not to her doom, but 
to the great reward, through the haunted forest of hob- 
goblins to the open moor and the dawn at last. 

“Watchman, what of the night? That’s what we all 
say, and here, my friends, is the answer. All’s well, for 
God is ahead of us with a lantern.” These hoarse words 
came into Winnie’s ears from a street-corner, where a 
pale, earnest man was preaching to those who would stay 
to listen. 

“If we ask to be shown the way He will say, ‘ Before 


About Smoke 


383 

I can help you, you must help yourself.’ You must do 
it, my friends,” shouted the preacher. ‘‘ Nothing comes 
to those who do nothing. You must help yourself and 
leave the rest to God. And then He will show you the 
bright side of the lantern and you will see the way. 
To those who do nothing He shows the dark side, be- 
cause they deserve nothing.” 

The man’s words were lost in the noise of traffic, but 
they seemed still to be ringing into Winnie’s ears as she 
crept homewards. She had never done anything for her- 
self ; she was so weak and yielding ; she had actually 
been afraid of trying to help herself because it seemed 
a presumptuous thing ; but perhaps even that ranting 
preacher, who dealt only in platitudes, could teach her 
something. Perhaps she had a friend above the smoke, 
on Dartmoor, who might be willing to help her — if she 
could only help herself and ask him. He might show 
her a way of leaving her husband, of getting some 
employment on the moor by which she could earn her 
living, and where she could breathe and live. 

That picture helped Winnie to endure during the 
darker days that followed. Halfacre never wrote when 
he was away; she could only guess where he was and 
what doing; probably seducing decent men from their 
work for brawling purposes, spoiling their morals, filling 
his own pockets, and declaring they were all on the 
road to liberty. Winnie had another trial to bear, for 
Hawker had not forgotten her. He had loved her in 
his own way, which was real enough to himself, had 
denied himself for her, and then she had jilted him. Poor 
Winnie had written him several touching letters, saying 
how very sorry she was, and it wasn’t her fault, and 
begging him not to molest her ; but Hawker had no know- 
ledge of chivalry. He began to drink brandy, which was 
not good for him, and gave him bloody ideas. He took 
to walking about with a revolver in his pocket, with the 
idea of murdering Winnie if he could catch her in the 
street. Some of his friends told the police, and Hawker 
was deprived of his weapon, but consoled himself by 
increasing the brandy. He would come round to Tom- 
kins Street on a Sunday afternoon with a few uncomely 
companions, and they would stand beneath Winnie’s 


Heather 


384 

window to shout abusive and disgusting remarks about 
that class of young women who promenade the public 
ways for hire and squeeze all the money they can out of 
a man. Hawker had been a decent young fellow, as 
virtues went in his society, but he was quickly falling 
to the level of John Petherick. He had been badly used, 
perhaps, and there was no mind to sustain him when 
the hour for endurance came ; so he got drunk and shouted 
abuse at every one. He would soon lose his employment, 
drift about the streets, finally joining the criminal class 
and spending the rest of his life in and out of prison ; 
and it was all on account of Winnie. She was to be the 
ruin of the wretched clerk, just because she had been too 
weak and yielding to repel his advances. Not that it 
would have been easy, for Hawker would have followed 
her about in spite of every rebuff, with his hat jammed 
on the back of his megacephalous skull, an amorous leer 
on his face, and a stinking cigar of the baser sort in 
his great, crooked mouth. It was only fair that Hawker 
should have his time of trouble, but it was pitiful that 
he should show himself unfitted to survive it. He had 
invited the misfortune ; he ought to have walked out with 
some wooden-faced and respectable servant on his Sun- 
day afternoons, and not have interfered with a damsel 
outside his class. 

“A filthy little prostitute.” Winnie had heard that 
shouted after her; and her husband declared she was a 
hindrance and a curse; all because the wrong sort of 
men insisted upon capturing her, and she was only 
Winnie of the smoke, and therefore not herself at all. 
From her own moor, from the glowing green depths of 
St. Michael’s Wood, from the peat-scented, fern-draped 
sides of Wheal Dream, and from the picture in the 
materialistic street came a very different voice, calling 
her back and saying in a song of Dartmoor, “You are 
sweet and lovely, little Winnie of the hill-top. We are 
looking for you that we may kiss you with the kisses 
which have never known pollution. You are the purest 
and loveliest flower in the wild garden, but rough hands 
have torn you up and thrown you upon the rubbish heap. 
The gardener is looking for you that he may plant you 
again on the top of your windy hill.” 


About Smoke 385 

“ I must help myself,” Winnie murmured, as she fal- 
tered along the unyielding street. 

She visited the doctor every week ; it was cheaper 
than letting him come to the lodging-house. The words 
of the wandering preacher clung to her and she repeated 
them often. 

She had to wait her turn at the doctor’s. There were 
several women, with plenty of troubles and not many 
shillings to relieve them, ahead of her; and when at last 
she reached the surgery it was to be handed a letter. It 
was from Berenice. Why did she write again, as Winnie 
had never answered the last letter? 

The examination was soon over, the usual questions 
were asked, and the busy doctor could only say what 
he had already said a dozen times; she must get away 
into pure air, or — though he did not tell her so — there 
w’ould be no more of her. The disease was not to be 
played with in this manner. 

” But I can’t go,” she said plaintively. 

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, his hand on the 
door to admit the next sorrowful story, and remarked, 
” I shall tell your husband you must. It will soon be as 
necessary for him as for you.” 

That seemed to be her only hope. If Halfacre broke 
down they would have to leave the town. Winnie 
dragged herself home, found her mother in a scolding 
mood, for the fire did nothing but smoke, and the unhappy 
lady had discovered there was hardly any money for house- 
keeping left, and Richard did not send anything or tell 
them where he was; and if he didn’t come back soon 
they would be starving. Winnie went away by herself 
and opened the letter. 

A minute later the sheet fluttered to the floor and the 
girl was in an agony of terror. There was nothing but 
a hurried scrawl to say that Berenice was going home 
from Penzance, which did not suit her, and she was 
determined to see Winnie and take her home. Neither 
date nor time was mentioned; and the letter had been 
delivered at the doctor’s the day before. 

” She will get the address and come straight on here,” 
murmured Winnie. ” I must get out somehow and make 
him promise not to tell her.” 

25 


Heather 


386 

She reached the door, but knew she was too weak and 
ill to go out again. Even that one journey had been an 
ordeal ; so she crept to her mother and put her head into 
the lady’s lap, and declared she was really going to die 
at last, and she hoped it would soon be over and not 
hurt much ; and her mother began with scolding but ended 
with fondling her. Then Winnie told her about Bere- 
nice’s letter, and asked her to go to the doctor, as she 
wasn’t able to go herself. 

“ It would be awful if she came here and found me. 
She thinks I am like herself. I had to tell her such lies. 
Mummy. ” 

“ Why couldn’t you do better? Why didn’t you marry 
that artist?” said Mrs. Shazell impatiently. She was a 
nice little lady when she was well treated, almost as 
fascinating in appearance as Winnie herself, but life was 
breaking and spoiling her. 

” Hush, Mummy. Do please go for me.” 

Her mother consented at last, as she, too, had some 
pride, and did not desire to be confronted by any young 
lady in those apartments ; and she went to put her things 
on, beginning to scold and grumble again, declaring they 
had never been so low in the world since Winnie had made 
her unfortunate marriage. Then she went out, while her 
daughter tried to sleep on the sofa and dream herself away 
from Tomkins Street. 

She did sleep, for her walk had tired her out, but she 
saw no pleasant pictures; there was just a little space 
of darkness before smoky light came back, and then 
she heard her mother returning. She had been gone 
some time, but the doctor’s house was a long way off; 
and she was talking to the landlady on the stairs. 

The door opened, with what seemed to be a reluctant 
movement, there was a patter of small feet, an excited 
whimper, and the next moment Winnie was back in the 
sanatorium and Tobias was jumping about her, kissing 
and loving her, and begging to be taken down the cleave 
that he might chase the rabbits. 

“That’s her, miss,” said the landlady hoarsely; and 
then the door was closed again. 

“Winnie!” exclaimed a voice of horror. No more 
Billy, no more Dimples; but a cold Winnie. 


About Smoke 


387 

There was Berenice, pale and thin, the whiteness on her 
face predominating over the brown, her eyes darker and 
larger ; she could not be getting better, but no doubt she 
had been overdoing it, as usual. But how fresh and 
scented she was, how beautifully dressed, how fearfully 
out of place in that street of labourers’ lodgings. 

“ Winnie ! what — what have you come to?” 

The poor little girl tried to rise; could not, as she felt 
so faint, and remained there breathing noisily. Berenice 
looked dazed ; she unfastened her fur necklet, and then 
glanced at the door as if she wanted to get away. 

” I think you must have made a mistake. You — you 
don’t really know me,” murmured Winnie wildly. 

” Tobias does.” 

“ It’s no good telling any more stories then. I have 
only just had your letter. I sent my mother to stop you. 
I am so sorry, but I had to deceive you.” 

‘ ‘ Good heavens ! ’ ’ muttered Berenice. ‘ ‘ What are 
you?” 

” Don’t talk like that. You were fond of me, Bere- 
nice. I will try and tell you if you will sit down.” 

“The chairs are dirty,” said Berenice disdainfully. 
“ Your boots haven’t been cleaned for weeks, I should 
think ; there is mud on your petticoat. Why, your hands 
are dirty too.” 

“ I am so ill, and there is a lot of housework.” 

“ I couldn’t make you out when we were at the sana- 
torium. I understand you now.” 

“ Oh, Berenice — you loved me, and this is not my 
fault. Won’t you be sorry for me and kiss me?” Winnie 
faltered. 

“ I am very sorry for you, but you deceived me fright- 
fully. I can’t kiss Mrs. Half acre,” said Berenice, with a 
shudder, and added in an undertone, “ Dirty Mrs. Half- 
acre.” Her feelings were again in a state of confusion. 
All her furious love, every bit of affection even, for the 
pretty girl were swept away in one moment directly she 
entered that room, by the sight of the squalor and 
poverty, the poor little sick girl so dreadfully dressed, with 
the street mud on her clothes and black rims to her tiny 
finger-nails, and by the smell of soot and smoke and the 
stale, unwholesome odours of the house. Thtt common 


Heather 


388 

little drudge of Tomkins Street was not her Billy of the 
sanatorium, not even the shadow of her. That draggled 
woman was nothing like the unspoilt maid she had longed 
to love. George would not have seen any difference, but 
he would have regarded Winnie with a man’s eyes and 
with a man’s love; the nose and the dimples would have 
been just as sweet to him, and that tender body would 
have lost none of its freshness. But Berenice felt as cold 
as any stone when she regarded the little heap of sick 
misery upon the old lodging-house lounge. Winnie 
looked at her bravely, although she had never felt so 
common before, but the worst was over now, she began 
to feel defiant, and considered the handsome, well-dressed 
young woman as some meddlesome lady who had come 
to bother a poor girl of the slums and poke a lying tract 
into her face in the hope that it might make her conscience 
raw and miserable. 

“ I think you had better not stay. Miss Calladine,” she 
said firmly and proudly. 

“ Well, yes, perhaps it would be best. Really I am 
sorry,” said Berenice, beginning to be awkward. ” If I 
can do anything — if I can help you at all, please let me 
know. It must be pretty bad to live like this,” she 
murmured. 

” Thank you, we don’t w'ant anything,” lied Winnie, in 
a wonderfully haughty fashion. Somehow she was fated 
never to tell Berenice the truth. 

” Good-bye, then. I hope you will soon be better,” 
said Berenice, feeling at a horrible disadvantage and long- 
ing to get out. By far the most delightful bubble she 
had ever played with was lying in a state of collapse upon 
that sofa, and there was nothing for her now except 
Tobias ; neither man nor maid for her in the future, but 
a dog for a lover who could not change and would not 
disappoint. 

But Tobias wouldn’t go. He had jumped up on 
Winnie and taken possession of her again, and his eyes 
and tail told the old story ; he had discovered his pretty 
girl again, a much prettier one than Berenice, and he 
intended staying with her. Tobias did not consider smoky 
Tomkins Street, the horrid lodging-house, the cheerless 
rooms; he was willing enough to exchange his cushioned 


About Smoke 


389 

bed and luxurious meals for a hard chair and some scraps 
of bread ; but then he was only a dog, and had nothing to 
give except a dog’s heart, which was a poor thing in 
comparison with human love. He snuggled down by 
Winnie and adored her, and explained that she could jump 
up presently and play about the room with him. 

“ Come along, little man,” said Berenice, trying to 
speak carelessly ; but Tobias did not even look at her. 

” Good-bye, dear little doggie,” said Winnie, kissing 
him and trying to lift him down; but she was not strong 
enough, and the effort made her cough. 

‘‘ I hate her,” said Berenice to herself; ” hate her now 
as much as I ever loved her. Tobias, come here,” she 
said aloud, more crossly than she had ever spoken to him ; 
and when she saw that nothing but force would serve 
she had to go to Winnie’s side and remove the dog, 
muttering, ” he’s such a little donkey.” 

Winnie said not a word; she did not even reply to 
Berenice’s farewell, but put her head bade on the hard 
cushion and took no further notice of the queer young 
woman who went out of the room with a final conven- 
tional remark, and with Tobias, protesting against being 
divorced, in her arms; and presently she was down-stairs, 
feeling ashamed and miserable, asking the landlady for 
a piece of string to prevent Tobias from running back 
into low company. Then she made off in a strange con- 
dition of selfish misery. No more sanatorium friendships 
for her; she had seen Winnie at home, common and 
unclean. It could not have been love; it must have been 
animal passion after all; and Tobias — little brute — had 
tried to show her something better. 


CHAPTER XXI 

ABOUT ST. PIRAN’S SANDS 

Even in the days when saints were as plentiful as pil- 
chards, and miracles were sold for pence, St. Piran was 
a remarkable gentleman. He flourished in the fourth 
century, if at all, was an Irishman with a keen sense of 
humour, and had the honour of being one of St. Patrick’s 
curates, until he was appointed to the living of St. Ives. 
Not having a boat to assist him towards his benefice, he 
simply sat on a millstone and paddled himself across the 
Channel on that, which to the historian seems an unneces- 
sary kind of miracle, as any sort of raft would have 
floated just as well ; and if St. Piran was so abnormally 
clever as to float on a stone he ought to have been capable 
of inventing a steamship. When the saint reached Corn- 
wall he set to work to build a cell, open a well, slaughter 
Druids, and make Christians ; the well and the oratory 
are still pointed out to strangers, as satisfactory evidence 
that St. Piran did paddle across the Channel on a mill- 
stone. His principal achievement is never alluded to ; 
apparently he spent the greater part of his saintly and 
miraculous existence collecting his famous sands. They 
are deep and treacherous, and suggest the dry bones of all 
these myths. St. Piran is the patron saint of miners, and 
his feast day is March the fifth. It ought to be called All 
Sands’ Day. 

Winnie had a horror of the sea; and there it was 
stretching out everywhere from those endless sand-dunes, 
cold and heaving. She was away from the smoke at last, 
but had only exchanged one terror for another; for the 
air was not pure to her, it was tainted by the sea, by the 
clammy salt mists, and the horizon was filled with that 
sickening purple mass of water. It is a pitiless sea off 
St. Piran’s Sands. 


390 


About St. Piran’s Sands 391 

Halfacre returned from London in a state of collapse. 
He had worked hard according to his lights, and his mis- 
sionary journey had been a success, although it was not 
one which St. Piran could have regarded altogether with 
approval. He was too weak to resist the doctor, who 
told him to go to the sea, but strong enough to resist 
Winnie when she begged for the moor. Seeing an adver- 
tisement of a cottage, which could be had for next to 
nothing as it was in the i;niddle of St. Piran’s Sands, he 
took it and himself and encumbrances down there. After 
all, he wanted quiet for what he was pleased to call his 
literary work. Organisation was over for the present, and 
there were a quantity of revolutionary pamphlets to be 
prepared; and he could stand on the sands and howl at 
the waves, and there would be none but the sea-birds to 
answer him. 

The change was a disastrous one, except for Mrs. 
Shazell. The place suited her, but Winnie became worse 
and Halfacre steadily wilder. The sea and the wind put 
strength into him, but it was the wrong kind of strength, 
improving the body at the expense of the mind. It was 
March, and bitter winds lashed the Cornish coast, flinging 
waves and sand about in a perfect kind of anarchy ; 
Winnie found sand in her teeth and a bitter salt taste in 
her mouth; all the food was gritty and tainted. There 
were four rooms in the cottage, and in one of them Half- 
acre worked day and night, like George Brunacombe; and 
sometimes he would rush out of the house, shouting that 
squires and parsons and other kinds of monsters were 
pursuing him, and he would dash about the sand-hills 
looking for stones to throw at them. They were trying 
to torment him because he was so unlike themselves. For 
years they had ignored him; as a school-boy they had 
compelled him to sulk alone; as an undergraduate they 
had sneered and passed to the other side; and now they 
were gathering around him and would murder him if they 
could. He had been free from such delusions in the town ; 
but the wildness and loneliness of St. Piran’s Sands made 
him mad. 

There were days when Winnie felt almost well, but not 
many; she was usually on her bed, losing weight and 
strength ; it was marvellous what a lot of weight the little 


Heather 


392 

creature could lose, and yet go on living and do house- 
work; for she couldn’t see her mother do everything. 
On those days when she was better she tried to help herself 
and oppose th6 husband, who in his contradictory manner 
would cheerfully have made a slave of her. 

At last she went into his room and showed him the 
letter she had received from Emily Halfacre. It was about 
four o’clock on Friday, the twelfth day of the month. She 
never forgot the time and date. He was chewing strong 
peppermints, which scented the room ; he was always 
eating the things, supposing they did him good. She 
noticed that his black hair was filled with sand ; he rarely 
brushed it, as there were so many more important things 
to be done. 

“Who is this woman?’’ asked Winnie. She had 
developed a good deal of courage since the day Berenice 
had visited her. 

“ Some immoral creature, some blackmailer,’’ he 
muttered angrily. 

“ She is not your sister?’’ 

“ Go away, woman. I will not be persecuted by you 
or by any one,’’ he shouted. 

“You must have relations. I have heard and seen 
nothing of them,’’ said Winnie. “ I don’t want to,’’ she 

added. “ But if she is your sister ’’ Winnie went 

on, trying to tilt her pretty nose scornfully. 

“ If she is, what then?’’ 

“ Why, you must be a man of the very lowest class,’’ 
she said, as cruelly as she could. 

Winnie was helping herself, but doing it badly; and 
she soon realised it, for Halfacre snatched the letter, tore 
it to pieces, shouting incoherently all the time, and then 
threatened to tear her to pieces too if she dared to perse- 
cute him. Winnie went to the door, rather frightened, 
and he came screaming after her. The next moment they 
were outside, where it seemed to be raining sand; there 
was a heavy mist, and the sea was booming in the distance. 
To Halfacre that sound represented the shouting of op- 
pressors, the men who had always hated him and were 
now determined to have his blood. 

He caught Winnie’s arm and dragged her along that 
he might find some place where he could hide himself. 


About St. Piran’s Sands 393 

shouting, “They are after me again, they won’t let me 
alone. They have got horses and carriages, and their 
women wear diamonds and fine clothes, while we are 
starving and drudging for the right to live. There’s the 
squire who said, ‘ Let the boy alone. What’s the use of 
stuffing his head with useless knowledge? Let him go 
and plough the fields. ’ He lives in the big house and 
keeps hounds, and swears at his servants, who are better 
than he is. There’s the parson who said, ‘ Let him 
struggle on. For God’s sake don’t try and raise the boy 
above his class. Take those books from him and send him 
into the fields to scare the rooks. ’ I believe they are both 
on the other side of that sand-hill. Give me that rock, 
wife. Didn’t I knock the paint off squire’s carriage that 
day he lifted his whip at me?’’ 

“ Let me go,’’ cried Winnie. “ The wind chokes me.” 

“Hold your noise,’’ he shouted roughly. “We are 
going across the desert, and if they catch us we’ll fling 
ourselves into the sea to spite them.’’ 

He was going across the sand as hard as he could, 
Winnie’s arm locked in his so that she had to follow. 

“ See that poor little chap slinking down the road? 
He hasn’t got a penny to buy sweets at the village shop. 
The other children won’t have him in their games because 
he’s not like them. The boys throw stones at him, the 
girls call him ‘ Mr. Richard,’ and pretend to curtsey when 
he goes by, and then shriek with laughter. They don’t 
know how mad it makes him. He can’t stand it, so he 
goes away into the woods and finds the flowers, and calls 
them by their botanical names, and they seem to under- 
stand hin. better than the children. He’s always alone, 
that boy, but he won’t touch his cap to parson, or say 
‘ sir ’ to squire, because he knows they can’t give the Latin 
names of the flowers in the hedgerow.’’ 

“ Who are you talking about?” gasped Winnie. It 
had not yet dawned upon her that the illiterate letter was 
working madly in his brain. 

“ There was Emily,” he went on shouting. “ She was 
the village prostitute. There was Fred, who went for a 
soldier and died abroad. There was Harriet, who put on 
a cap and apron, and spends her life washing dishes. 
There was Harry, who became a labourer, and can hardly 


Heather 


394 

read or write. And the old man is going on the parish, 
crippled and done for. The devil take them all ! How 
the rotten fish stinks down there ! What a miserable 
home it was, and how it smelt of an evening when they 
were all there in working-clothes after a supper of bread 
and potatoes, while the poor little chap pored over his 
Greek Grammar in the corner ! ‘ Chuck him out. He’s 

no good. He can’t even stand at a horse’s head, and 
he cheeks the gentry. Take the book away from him, 
Fred, and punch his head. Put him out to sleep in the 
pig-sty.’” 

‘‘It is himself,” panted Winnie, sick and shivering, as 
she was hurried along through the wind and flying sand 
with the sea mist all around. 

‘‘ Look at him at school,” Halfacre raved on. ” How 
the gentlemen’s sons knock him about, the miserable little 
wretch, who wins the scholarships and gets above them 
all and has no money. How they jeer at him for his poor 
patched clothes and big country boots. ‘ There goes the 
cad. Come here, cad, and turn round to be kicked on 
your caddish posterior. Touch your cap, cad, and call 
me sir. You’re a dirty swot, cad.’ How they licked him 
round the form-room, squires’ sons, parsons’ sons, be- 
cause he knew his Greek play so much better than they 
did. He was always alone when they were not torturing 
him, because he wasn’t like them. He was always work- 
ing. The masters hated him because he was not a gentle- 
man’s son. His own family hated him because he was 
better than they were.” 

‘‘ Let me go,” Winnie was crying between the wind 
and her own distressed breathing; but again he took no 
notice, and did not seem to know that he was dragging her 
along with him. They were far away on the sands in 
sea-bird-land and no-man ’s-land. 

‘‘ There he is at Oxford winning all the prizes, turning 
out the best Latin verses ever known there,” Halfacre 
shouted. ‘‘ ‘ Who’s that dark man in cheap, ready-made 
clothes? Why, that’s the bounder of Balliol.’ They pull 
his room to pieces, screw him in for hours, duck him in 
dirty water, spoil his poor clothes. He’s only the bounder, 
he’s got no feelings, and he don’t subscribe to anything. 
They couldn’t think what the world was coming to when 


About St. Piran’s Sands 395 

bounders had brains, and what the ’Varsity was coming 
to when that sort of lout was admitted to win scholar- 
ships. All they can do is to give him hell, these gentle- 
men’s sons. ‘ Good old bounder. Chuck him in the 
Cherwell. ’ That’s the battle fought by the son of the 
village labourer and the brother of the village prostitute, 
a battle against gentlefolk and their gentle ways.” 

” Stop, Richard. I’ll go on my knees and drag you 
down,” screamed Winnie. 

” Now he’s in the world, fighting against those that 
fought against him, against squires and parsons. He’ll 
raise an army one day, a million strong, and he’ll beat 
them down. It’s only a matter of time and lasting out, 
but they run after him and persecute him and pay their 
police to move him on. To the devil with all gentlefolk !” 
he yelled louder than ever, throwing out his arms and so 
releasing Winnie. He rushed on, picking up stones, 
hurling them about, and shrieking curses upon those who 
had made him mad, a poor diseased creature at war with 
every law, a victim of intense self-consciousness ; and so 
he disappeared, howling into the noisy mist of sea and 
sea-birds. 

Winnie remained on the sands until her life came back. 
It was time at last to help herself in earnest. She and 
her mother must get away from their mad master and find 
a place for themselves. She wasn’t going to die^ — upon 
that point she was certain ; neither was she going to live 
any longer with that horrible man. If the law could not 
separate them, necessity must. She would write to George, 
throw morality into the howling mist, and tell him every- 
thing ; and if he wrote back and told her what he thought 
she could not lose, she could hardly fall any lower; and 
he might be her friend — she had no other — and^ might say 
he would help the small girl who had inspired him to paint 
that sorrowful figure ” Lost ” beside the stepping-stones 
of St. Michael’s Ford. 

The mist lifted, or was blown up by the wind, as 
Winnie ploughed her way back over those wearying sands ; 
and ahead of her a huge triangular gap appeared, made by 
the mouth of a combe. That space was filled with sky, 
but suddenly a purple mass heaved up like the back of a 
whale, and Winnie screamed, for it was the sea tossing 


Heather 


396 

there. She looked the other way and turned more. inland, 
but wherever she went the horrible, heaving- mass ascended 
and descended, as if desiring to reach her body and crush 
out what little life remained. 

She wrote at once while courage was warm within her, 
but all the servile intentions died away and the letter 
became tender and touching. She could not send such 
a thing; it was impossible, and after one reading she 
tore it up. It was not possible to help herself in that 
way. She took another sheet and wrote the address at 
the top of it. Somehow it was the address she wanted 
George to have; but what else could she write? 

This is what went down — 

“ Dear Mr. Brunacombe, 

“ Were you thinking of me, I wonder, when you 
painted that picture ‘ Lost ’? How did you know? 

“ Yours sincerely, 

“Winifred Shazell. ’’ 

What a mad and monstrous thing it was to sign with 
her maiden name ! but the girl felt she had reached the 
parting of the ways and could endure no more. She 
could not write her Christian name unsupported; she 
would not use the hateful name of Halfacre. She ceased 
to regard herself as a married woman, for she too was in 
revolt against the law, and when a timid, shrinking girl 
does break loose she goes far. She had reached a stage 
when she would have banged the door upon all the Courts 
of Justice and the ten commandments. She wanted her 
happiness — whatever it was — and some excuse for her 
continual and impertinent cry, “ I won’t die till I have it.” 
Her wild husband had taught her something, after all. 

The post-box was a long way off and she was exhausted. 
Should she wait until the morning and give the letter to 
the postman? But he might not come. Everything 
seemed to be shouting at her; the distant sea bellowed 
“ Go,’’ and the salt winds howled “ Go,” and the sea- 
birds screamed “ Go,” and the sand flung against the 
window piped “Go;” and only her own sick body said 
“Stay.” She went. That’s the way people save their 
lives. 

When Half acre came back he was quiet enough, had 


About St. Piran’s Sands 397 

indeed nothing to say, and took his food in a civilised 
fashion. Afterwards Winnie and her mother heard him 
pacing his room, and there was no other sound for some 
time. Then he tramped towards them, stood in the door- 
way, with his head down as if he had been entrusted with 
a message and was trying to think of it; the troubled 
creature looked almost fascinating as he brushed his hand 
across his forehead and seemed to be struggling with his 
memory. It was also the time of full moon. 

Winnie had told her mother nothing; she never men- 
tioned the evil, and there were no good things to report; 
and all that Mrs. Shazell asked for in those days was to 
be left Imtroubled. 

‘‘This can’t go on any longer,” said Halfacre quietly, 
as if he had just remembered what he had come for. ‘‘ It 
was bad enough to be driven down here, but when it 
comes to treachery we must take action.” 

‘‘ Say something. I make him worse,” whispered 
Winnie. 

‘‘For goodness’ sake, child, manage your own wretched 
business,” said her mother crossly. 

‘‘ Stop that. I won’t have conspiracy under my very 
nose,” said Halfacre sternly, but without any violence. 
‘‘ You have been communicating with my enemies, putting 
them on my track, and this place will be a refuge no 
longer. Some of them are outside already. They have been 
throwing things at my window, as they did at Oxford ; 
old boots and dead rats. I heard them strike the glass.” 

‘‘ It was only the sand,” said Winnie, actually in a 
sulky voice. 

‘‘ Hold your tongue, woman. Don’t think I haven’t 
watched you. I saw you coming back from the post. 
You have written to them saying where I am. Every 
gentleman’s son in England will be here soon — to rag me, 
as they call it. You are on their side, because you regard 
yourself as a gentleman’s daughter. Haven’t I dragged 
you down ?” 

“ Be quiet,” interrupted Winnie, with a glance at her 
mother, who still supposed Halfacre was a gentleman in 
reduced circumstances, who would come into property some 
day ; but Mrs. Shazell only looked up sleepily with the wind 
in her ears and asked what the man was grumbling about. 


Heather 


398 

“You had better not speak to me like that. I won’t 
be ragged by a wife.’’ Halfacre kept on brushing his 
forehead as if he had a headache. “ This is a form of 
persecution which must end. That is all I have to say 
at present, except that I shall soon have some one to be a 
help and a protector. If another man throws a dead rat 
at me I will go out and buy a pistol,’’ he cried wildly. 

Mrs. Shazell woke up completely at last and began to 
scream. The man had locked the door, and it was an 
up-stairs room. 

They heard him outside presently, cursing the moon 
which was hardly visible and his enemies who were not 
there at all. Across St. Piran’s sands he went hurling 
shells and stones, and imagining in his foolish self-pride 
he was hitting the sky with them. The wind and the sea 
roared at him, and he thought the sounds came from his 
own poor body. The sand came against his face like 
stinging bees, into his ears like the fierce words of St. 
Piran’s sermon, and he believed his enemies were upon 
him — squires and parsons — and he struck out blindly, and 
rushed about looking for them, raving and yelling at the 
“ blasted gentlemen ’’ who had blasted his life. It was a 
devil-haunted night upon St. Piran’s drifting sands. 

About four o’clock in that cold, grey hell of a morning 
Winnie fainted. There was no bed in the room and very 
little furniture, not even a couch ; she was lying on the 
floor and her mother knelt beside her, weak and hysterical, 
rubbing her hands, unfastening her clothes — such shabby 
clothes, for Half acre spared no money for follies — expos- 
ing her lovely flesh and nice little bones protruding so 
dreadfully; but Winnie neither moved nor spoke. 

“ Darling, don’t die — not like this,’’ cried the unhappy 
woman, who had been a petted lady once; and at last 
there came a movement and a sound, and that soft defiant 
voice — 

“ I won’t die, not till I have lived.’’ 

Dawn became day and Halfacre did not forget them. 
He brought some tea and bread and butter, opened the 
door, pushed the things in, and laughed at them. He was 
not being unkind, he was only protecting himself, not 
daring to let them out or they would go and lead his 
enemies to the sand-hills. They were prisoners, he re- 


About St. Piran’s Sands 399 

minded them, and he was going to use them as such, and 
not feed them too well and make them strong enough to 
be dangerous. And Winnie required good fattening food 
to keep her alive; the storm was upon her now; if she 
could weather that she deserved to grow and flower again. 
Mrs. Shazell succeeded in losing all control over herself 
and screamed at Halfacre ; an evil thing to do, for it con- 
firmed his suspicions. She was threatening him, going to 
bring every gentleman in the land against him, if she 
could escape ; henceforth he was justified in keeping them 
close. With a stern judicial manner he refused his wife 
a bed or a pillow or even water to wash with. Tradesmen 
visited the cottage rarely; they had to fetch most of their 
supplies from the church-town. That day went by and 
they had nothing but bread and tea to live on. 

“ Mummy,” gasped Winnie as evening came on, an 
evening of writhing shapes of mist and wild March 
violence, “something is going to happen.” 

“ Oh, darling !” almost screamed the hysterical woman. 
“ Not that.” 

But it was that, to pile horror upon horror. Men do 
not know of it, but women whisper of it sometimes, and 
put their hands to their faces like Apollo at the death of 
'(Edipus, because there was that about the death of the 
king which even a god could not look at. Only women 
know what men must guess at; women such as the sick 
and terrified servant girl in her wretched garret, frightfully 
afraid of being found out and knowing she must go 
through it alone; such as the woman alone in the bush, 
whose husband has gone for the doctor and lost himself, 
lying there in an agony of pain and terror knowing she 
must go through it alone. These things are too common 
to be blinked away. Life must go on, though we don’t 
know why, and suffering only provokes a mocking kind of 
laughter from the cloud of Nature’s witnesses. Winnie 
had her pretty teeth together. This would kill her, any- 
how, doctors had said. It was not the time, not nearly; 
but she had suffered a good deal lately; and the cottage 
was locked up, Halfacre had gone off. Her mother had 
her hands before her eyes. . . . 

It was finished. Mrs. Shazell, weak, troubled, generally 
useless, became a woman; her husband had married her 


400 


Heather 


from a hospital and she was still skilful. Winnie had a 
long time ceased to show any sign of life ; even her breath- 
ing seemed to have ceased. She looked pretty, deathly 
pretty — the flower at least had not withered — as she lay 
on the floor with lines of agony on the poor little face 
and the small lips bitten ; the nose rather waxen, but as 
beautiful as ever; and even the dimples were not stamped 
out. The infant was alive, but that was of little conse- 
quence then. The cottage in the sand was silent except 
for the wind ; it was getting dark and there was neither 
lamp nor candle in the room. 

Halfacre was not back; he had been known to stay 
away the whole night. The door could not be forced by a 
weak woman. Mrs. Shazell could do only one thing, if it 
was not already too late to save her daughter’s life. The 
window was fiheen feet above ground, but if it had been 
thirty she would have thrown herself out, for she was a 
woman then and her nerves had been driven out. 

Fortune, or a special Providence, makes a way some- 
times for the brave; or perhaps the ghost of St. Piran 
still took a sentimental interest in the place and it was 
he who brought the wind inland to fling a great drift of 
sand against the side of the cottage. It was there, any- 
how, and Mrs. Shazell had nothing to do but let herself 
from the window feet first, and slide into the cold, kindly 
stuff more like a child at play than a middle-aged lady 
who had just become a grandmother. The full moon was 
coming out of the sea in a wild way, and the sandy track 
beyond was as white as concrete; two miles on was the 
church -town, and the lady girded up her loins and did it 
in twenty minutes, the wind being behind her and every- 
thing favourable. St. Piran ought to have slept comfort- 
ably in his celestial bed that night, for his vast wilderness 
of sand had been of some service at last. 

Mrs. Shazell reached people with sane minds and sound 
hearts. There was no resident doctor, but there were 
fishermen, the best folk in the world, and there was a 
parson who was a man red with Cornish blood, who knew 
how to man a lifeboat and rescue bodies from the sea. 
There was also master constable exceedingly anxious to 
arrest any one who was not a parishioner, and a black- 
smith with a silver wrestling cup on his sideboard and a 


About St. Piran’s Sands 401 

fist which could smash woodwork. Cornish folk don’t 
wait for the grass to grow when there is a sound of 
trouble; they know what it is to tumble out of bed when 
there are guns and rockets flashing off their coast. A 
party set out at once in a cart, making the horse gallop; 
There was no sign of Halfacre, but an old gossip de^ 
dared she had seen him making off in the direction of 
Newquay. He was wandering about under the influence 
of the moon, not meaning to be unkind to those at home, 
but having forgotten all about them. The constable 
wagged his head and declared he would lay hands on him 
presently. 

There was no need to climb in at the window, for the 
blacksmith had both doors open in two minutes. Winnie 
was lying there in the same dead state, and the child was 
alive. What could be done for both of them was done, 
but Mrs. Shazell was crying all the time — 

“ She must be taken away. Her husband is a madman 
and has tried to murder us. He went mad two days ago 
and thought we were trying to kill him.” 

The moon was shining brightly by then, the wind had 
ceased, and the indigo sea merely lisped in a childish 
fashion to the rocks. Perhaps the storm was over; but 
Winnie did not, and could not, know. 

Another man joined the party, apparently a fisherman 
too, for he wore long boots and a jersey, a sou ’-wester 
flapped down his neck, and a net was coiled upon his 
shoulder; but his hands, although as red as those of his 
companions, were not so rough. This man couldn’t intone 
a service worth hearing, but he could manage a boat with 
the best of them ; and he had come on foot to say — 

” Put her in this net and carry her up over to the 
parsonage.” Turning to Mrs. Shazell, he added in an 
awkward way, which had nothing of the polished gentle- 
man about it, “ We haven’t got a fine house, but you must 
come to it.” 

They put Winnie in the net and carried her all the way 
without one jolt, the parson walking by the side, holding 
the hammock to prevent it from swaying. The doctor 
had already been sent for, but shook his head when he 
arrived and saw his patient, and remained with her all 
night; while the parson talked in a simple fashion about 
26 


Heather 


402 

the tides, and said that if the girl weathered that of the 
morning she would reach the shore. 

Halfacre got back at midnight, walking in all the 
shadows he could find, feeling very weak and ill. He had 
almost made up his mind to throw himself on the mercy 
of his wife and her mother, beg them to show him some 
sympathy and fight on his side against his enemies. It 
was the old trouble; they were unlike him, they could 
not understand him and laughed at his ambitions. Why 
couldn’t they leave him alone and permit him to fulfil his 
mission? He had tried to be kind but they wouldn’t have 
it; they were always mocking him or taunting him with 
illiterate letters from his family, and reminding him he! 
was nothing but a labourer, who ought to have been at 
the plough touching his forehead abjectly to squires and 
parsons. If they refused to show him ordinary kindness 
he must protect himself, keep them locked in that room, 
starve them into a state of weakness so that they would 
be less liable to attack him. Even if they died he would 
only have been acting in self-defence. The moon which 
made him mad looked down coldly upon Halfacre as if she 
too hated him and was wondering why such queer minds 
were made. 

When he got to the cottage he understood everything. 
The conspiracy had in part succeeded, his wife had written 
and told every one where he could be found, and the sons 
of gentlemen had been to rag him and end him, to throw 
him into the sea — they would hardly hesitate at murder in 
that lonely place — but fortunately he had gone out and 
escaped them, just as he had gone into the woods in his 
childhood to call the flowers by their Latin names and get 
away from the tormenting village children. They had 
broken the cottage open, and his wife and her mother had 
gone away with them. What further proof could he 
require of their treachery? They had gone back to their 
own class, that of the landowner and oppressor, and left 
him alone ; always alone, at home, at school, at college, 
in the world. It was a horrible solitude; the enemy, 
although weak in numbers, was mighty in cunning; the 
oppressed, although mighty in numbers, had no strength, 
no unity, no intellect; and Jack would go on killing the 
giant because Jack was cunning and the giant was a fool. 


About St. Piran’s Sands 


403 

Halfacrc barricaded the door as well as he could, then 
huddled into the darkest corner and wept; a pitiful sight 
upon St. Piran’s sands. How hard he had worked, and 
in the face of what difficulties, only he knew. What a 
frightful struggle it had been in his childhood, and only 
two maiden ladies, who were sisters and wealthy, had 
helped him on ! Even the master of the public-school had 
disliked the clever ploughboy. Every one had hated him ; 
his own class because he was trying to lift himself out of 
it ; the better classes because he sought to join them with- 
out money. He thought he had done what he could with 
his brilliant gifts, but there must have been something 
wanting, something which kept him back, something in 
his body which prevented him from advancing. He had 
been the most distinguished scholar of his year, a man 
apparently to whom all things were possible; and it had 
only come to this — a brawling about the streets with a 
flag and an anarchic cry of down with everything. Pos- 
sibly Halfacre deserved pity rather than blame as he sat and 
cried in the dark corner of the lonely cottage on the sand. 

The tide came in, and the fishers went out because there 
were pilchards beyond the bar, and Winnie was alive, 
conscious again, and saying she wasn’t going to die, 
although the doctor feared she was not speaking the truth. 
The girl-baby was alive too, having some of her mother’s 
stubbornness, and a wet-nurse was found to take charge of 
her. The constable came to the parsonage and entreated 
Mrs. Shazell to charge Halfacre with all manner of 
offences, but the lady, who was herself prostrated by this 
time, desired above all things peace. 

March days howled on and Winnie held her own. At 
last she asked if any one had written to her — as if such 
a thing was likely. They told her there was nothing, and 
she merely sighed and said it was a pity ; and from that 
day onward she made no progress, and the doctor said it 
was a matter of time. 

Winnie guessed as much and ceased to struggle. She had 
known all along there was little more chance of her getting 
better by the sea than in the smoke. There was nothing 
to live for, as she was not the luck-child after all, there 
was no happiness ahead, only more horrors; she would 
pass along somewhere else and her mother must seek 


Heather 


404 

the shelter of charity. That was what worried her. She 
told the rough and kind parson prettily that she would die 
as soon as she could and not be a burden, and all that had 
happened was not her fault; and then she thought she 
ought to see her husband once more. So Halfacre was 
sent for, but he gave no answer. 

One evening a young woman came to the parsonage. 
She was black-haired, showily dressed in outrageous 
colours, hard in face and bold-eyed. She asked to see 
“the young person who had been with Mr. Halfacre. ” 
The parson and his wife were out, Mrs. Shazell was in bed, 
and the country maid, supposing it was all right, as the 
visitor said she was expected, let her in and took her up 
to Winnie’s bedroom. 

“ ’Ullo,” said the young woman. “ Taking it easy, 
ain’t you? ’Ow’s the kid?’’ 

“ Who are you?’’ asked Winnie feebly. 

“ Me? Why, I’m Mrs. Halfacre, if you wants to know. 
I’m Dick’s wife. You sent for ’im to come and see you,’’ 
she went on in her strident voice. “ Like your cheek, I 
do think, after the way you treated him. I only come 
down yesterday, ’cause he couldn’t ’ave me before, and as 
me and Dick are off to-morrow he said I’d better step 
round and see what you wanted. Good God, fancy Dick 
getting struck on a dolly kid like you.” 

“ What can you mean?” gasped Winnie, when she was 
able to speak. Hadn’t she got to the end of her sufferings 
yet? 

“ Mean?” cried the young woman, with a beastly 
laugh. “ Oh, I see ’ow ’tis. You think you are married 
to Dick, and I s’pose you are in the eyes of the law, as 
they call it. But we don’t believe in the church and the 
law in our society. We do as we blooming well want to. 
Me and Dick thinks alike. We’re an up-to-date couple, 
we are. We were married last time he was up in London. 
Oh yus, we gave our word to each other without the ’elp 
of the registry office or any of that sort of tomfoolery. As 
long as we loves one another we sticks together, and if so 
be as I gets tired of ’im I’ll go off with some other fellow, 
and if he gets enough of me he’ll take another woman. 
See? That’s what we call liberty. Good God, I believe 
the kid’s a-dying. I’m off,” she muttered. 


CHAPTER XXII 


ABOUT LAUREL LEAVES 

There’s always a promise of surnmer in March upon 
the moor. It came to awaken George out of a kind of 
working sickness, which had lasted since the beginning of 
the year; he had painted a number of pictures, good onesj 
and yet no good; his oriental agent wrote telling him to 
send them up and he would try and dispose of them at five 
shillings each, but George did not respond. He wanted 
to have those pictures by him, to gloat over them, give 
them his love; for they were the children of his imagina- 
tion, he had put his heart into them, and no man likes 
to receive a couple of half-crowns in return for his best. 

A day came glorious with furze below and sun above, 
a field and a sky of gold ; and George cleaned his brushes 
and put them away for ever. He had finished his work. 
Then he took a sheet of paper and wrote, “In re Bubo 
and Brunacombe in bankruptcy;’’ a lot of bees, all sting- 
ing ones. He tried to think of the assets ; liabilities there 
were none, as he had been honest; he might be worth 
one hundred pounds, and there was the Wheal House, 
which ought to bring another two hundred. Mr. Odyorne 
might give him more, as he would naturally desire to get 
the whole of Wheal Dream into his possession. With 
that money he would have to start again ; he might take 
a share in a farm and live up to his name, or go into 
some small town and open a tobacconist’s shop. George 
was not joking; he knew he was a failure, though he 
couldn’t understand why, for he had worked much harder 
than most successful men. There was no justice in his 
failure, since he had tried so hard, but it was useless 
discussing that point, as no man can deal with destiny 
by string-pulling. The fact remained that he was going 
to be wiped out to satisfy some whim of Providence. 

405 


Heather 


406 

That was how George put it in his bitterness. The moor 
had reclaimed him again, the grey beard was round his 
face and the baggy old clothes were round his body, and 
the peat and gravel were in his nails, and he was old 
and stooping and calling himself poor old George the 
wild man, the savage of Wheal Dream. 

“ It’s a fine day to be damned,” he muttered, not daring 
to think of that other day not far ahead when he would 
have taken his last walk through St. Michael’s Wood and 
across the marshes to see the setting sun sliding in a 
bath of colour down the cleave of the river. Then he 
would be torn up, with some of the peat clinging to his 
roots; and when they dried he would die, for he couldn’t 
strike and make growth in the stones of a town. George 
did not think of that day yet. 

” You must die. Bubo. I can’t turn you out on the 
moor or take you with me. One of the tragedies of 
failure is that you drag others down with you. The 
Chowns will have to go back to Downacombe and live in 
a ditch. We will erect a little gallows one cubit high,” 
he said, grinning miserably. ” I will give you a big 
breakfast, then pull a black cap over your big bright eyes, 
tie a stone to your foot, and launch you into eternity 
and the Paradise of Birds.” 

George went out, climbed upward, and seating himself 
on a flat stone watched the great landscape that he loved 
so well and was to lose. Tiny figures moved about, 
pigmy men going for granite, crawling here and there 
like mites ; and presently Gregory came along, passing 
George about fifty feet away, throwing out his arm and 
iron bar as the gentle breeze stirred up ahead a thin 
white cloud. 

” A gude year, sir,” he shouted. ” March dust never 
begged his bread.” 

George was past omens and took no heed of the fair 
promise of that dust. It was the glorious time of year, 
far happier than the death and decay of harvest days. 
It was the time of the resurrection of the gigantic powers 
of life, of bursting buds, sprouting tubers, when the preg- 
nant earth and grass smelt good ; the time of tilling and 
the time of marriage, of fertilising, of heaven upon earth 
for a few days ; the bridal earth steaming with a pure kind 


About Laurel Leaves 407 

of sensuousness towards her lord the sun ; the time when 
a woman laughs, and a man shouts, and lambs jump 
madly, and horses tear about in the lust of life and joy 
of spring. George felt as if he could have taken Nature 
and rolled on the ground with her; worked for her, and 
tossed the produce into her lap; for that is how a man 
was made to live, with his skin against the earth, helping 
the mother to breed those things which grow in the earth ; 
not to rot himself on the silk of luxury and the stones 
of art. 

There was no one to reason with George. Even the 
heather with its eternal doctrine of holding-on made no 
appeal to him then, for he had a mind and that mind 
argued it was no use holding on. There was not a bird 
to whisper that the law made, as Gregory would have 
expressed it, at the beginning of the world is inexorable 
and cannot change ; that the man who does his best 
never fails in the end ; though he may have to wait until 
middle-age puts its frost upon him, he is bound to come 
through. That is a truth ; the law is cruel but does not 
kill; it is the man who kills himself. No battle can be 
won without wounds, and it is only the coward who faints 
at the sight of blood; the true man drinks a little more 
courage and strikes again. There may be ninety-nine 
failures for every success, but the failures have only them- 
selves to blame; they have not done their best — and man 
as the hardiest thing alive must sweat perhaps twenty 
years in pain and difficulties to do his best, — they are 
poltroons, they are deserters, and the law condemns them, 
having no mercy for shirkers. And it is a peculiarity 
of this Act of God that, just as it is darkest and most 
miserable before the dawn, so the condition of the 
struggler is most wretched upon the eve of his success. 
It is only when the work drops from his exhausted hand 
and he knows he can do no more, knows that he has 
failed and must lie in the hell of slaughter like sheep, 
it is then that the decree goes forth and he becomes one 
whom the gods delight to honour. What age-long toil 
the stupendous marvels of creation may have entailed 
upon the Creator only He knows ; and perhaps He expects 
men to go through as much as they can endure before 
they too may be permitted to create. 


Heather 


408 

Had Georgfe forgfotten Winnie? There was the simple 
fellow, with the big, honest mind and clean brains, tramp- 
ing across the wild common late every night, regardless 
of sleet and snow, going to the village and the post- 
office with an imaginary letter in his pocket. He wrote to 
Winnie every day in fancy, and in fancy posted the letter. 
Tricks like that keep men going sometimes, and prevent 
them from scrabbling on the walls and imagining they 
are Popes and Kings. George was happy when he took 
those foolish walks. They entered into his life like glad 
realities. 

That night Wheal Dream asserted itself. Perhaps a 
mystery which had some unattainable truth at the bottom 
of it, like that hallucination of the mediaeval nuns sway- 
ing along the churchway of Downacombe, was at work 
connecting the spadiard of the mine with St. Piran of the 
sands. George went down in his sleep to St. Michael’s 
Ford, and there was Winnie sitting on that square, flat 
stone. She wore a hooded cloak of soft grey, but the 
hood had fallen back from her flaxen head. 

“I’m so frightened,’’ she said, but all the time she 
laughed because she couldn’t be really unhappy there, 
and people can shiver and laugh at the same moment in 
dreamland. 

“What frightens you, child?” said George. He was 
very old and bent, for the spring had gone for ever while 
he looked back, as Gregory told him it would, and Winnie 
was his daughter. He realised that, for people are quick- 
witted when they walk in dreamland. 

“ It’s the bottom of the sea. Father,” said she. “ The 
coast has rotted away and the sea has come tumbling in. 
Hark at the waves roaring far above our heads.” 

“ That is the pure wind which heals you, Winnie. It 
is rushing through the branches of St. Michael’s 
oaks. ” 

“ No, Father. It’s the sea sweeping the sand about. 
Here are shells and sand as deep as the bogs once were. 
The bracken has become seaweed, and there are big crabs 
crawling down my bank of white violets. The sea terrifies 
me so.” 

“ Then why do you laugh, child?” 

“ Because you are with me. Father. I kept calling 


About Laurel Leaves 


409 

you, but you wouldn’t come. I can hold your hand now, 
and we will swim through the wood.” 

” But I am walking and breathing. How is it we can 
breathe if we are at the bottom of the sea?” 

” Why, you are a silly father,” she laughed. ” We 
are all mermen and mermaids now. That’s why we can 
breathe. Look at my tail.” 

” I don’t see any tail, Winnie. There are two delicious 
little feet. Where have you been all this time, child? 
I have searched for you everywhere.” 

“Have you?” she said, puzzled. “And I have been 
calling you. Father, we have made a mistake somehow. 
Did you think I wanted jto lose you?” she said reproach- 
fully. ” Was I upon the top of Crockern Tor? But I 
had short skirts then, and my hair was blowing all over 
the place.” 

” Your skirts are short now, and your hair is loose 
and tumbling inside your hood. Crockern Tor is miles 
away, and I never looked for you there. I was afraid you 
might be ill and couldn’t find your way home. Bubo has 
been ill because you would not come and give him his 
supper; and Father has been ill too,” said George 
tenderly. 

‘ ‘ Then we have all been ill ; but we are going to laugh 
and be better now. It is all owing to the storm.” 

” What storm, little girl?” 

” Have you forgotten the great storm which came 
sweeping over the moor? I clung on as long as I could, 
but it swept me away at last. I tried to get to the Wheal 
House, but it seemed to me that the door was locked. 
So the wind carried me away. It was so rough, Father. 
It hurt me horribly, and I am bruised still and stiff all 
over. ” 

” I shall never let you run out by yourself again. Let 
me put your hood straight,” said George, bending over 
and kissing her, on both her eyes, and her nose, and on 
the dimples; not in a parental manner; and every kiss 
turned into a large pearl, which rolled into her lap, so that 
it was easy to keep count of those kisses. These delight- 
ful things happen in dreamland. 

” Father, I believe the storm is coming up again,” 
she said, shivering. 


Heather 


410 

“ I have you by the hand, Winnie.” 

“ But not very tight, not half tight enough. Father, 
you never do hold me so that the wind cannot sweep me 
away.” 

“ I am not very strong, child, and I am nervous. I 
seem to be getting old and people laugh at me. Didn’t 
you make faces at me behind my back once, Winnie?” 

“No, never, never. I would blow kisses at you, but 
the wind carried them off like thistledown. It was such 
a terrible wind and made the sea roar so, and I suffered 
agony when I was lying on the sands. Hush, Father,” 
she whispered. “ Here come the Perambulators.” 

Down the steep pathway climbed the twelve great 
figures in their bright mail, and they crossed the Ford one 
by one, gazing ahead with stern faces. They had nearly 
finished their journey, they had endured the storms, and 
were completing the task which would never be forgotten ; 
and then each knight became a clap of thunder, rolling 
into the side of Cawsand with a dolorous roar, and where 
each man struck was a blaze of fire. 

“ It’s the storm. Father.” 

“No, child, the sky is clear over the moor. This is 
the calm wind. Look at the heather. It is almost 
motionless. ” 

Then they were inside the wood, walking above the 
waterfall, Winnie clinging as if she had been a growth 
from his body. The hood had fallen right back and her 
head was lovely; drops of spray fell from the leaves above, 
becoming diamonds directly they touched her hair, and 
wherever she placed her feet roses and lilies began to 
grow. What a pity this was only a dream ! 

But they were not happy, for somehow the sun would 
not shine and the wood was getting dark. The storm was 
all round them and a sense of horror brooded. The oaks 
became giants in torture and their roots writhed with 
pain; fearful corpses sprawled among the ferns, the 
bodies of men who had failed ; there was the Blackavon 
streaming down from the moor, but its waters had been 
turned into blood, and long-haired heads of women who 
had suffered in secret were bobbing about in it. The 
flowers exhaled an odour of iodiform ; and upon the bank 
of white violets was the body of a creature, half man. 


About Laurel Leaves 


411 

half beast, bleedingf from a hundred wounds but unable 
to die, because it represented the principle of eternal life. 
These unpleasant things happen in dreamland. 

“ Father, you are not holding on,” cried Winnie in 
terror. 

“We cannot fight against our destiny. My pictures 
are no good. Bubo is pecking holes in them, and the 
place ^ is for sale. The next wind will carry us off. 
Winnie, don’t go.” She seemed to be turning into mist, 
thick, cobwebby stuff which enmeshed his body. 

” I must, if you won’t hold me. Father.” 

“ I cannot,” he cried despairingly. 

“ It’s the last storm. If it carries me away we are 
lost for ever. Oh, why don’t you hear me when I call? 
Why don’t you come to me? There is the Wheal House 
— no, it’s the cottage on the sands. Take this and hold 
on. It’s my heart.” 

‘‘It is vapour, Winnie. It is going from me, melting 
away. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Then this, take this — for the sake of heaven, my 
heart’s sake, my life’s sake, take it, for it’s the last, 
the very last, thing I can do.” 

‘‘ There is nothing here, Winnie.” 

‘‘ Yes, don’t you see it — a message? I can’t breathe 
any more. I must rise to the surface, but it is miles 
above. Where are you? Father, I am lost.” 

George started up and looked round, seeing only the 
cold room and the greyness of the morning. The place 
was bare, for he had already begun to dismantle the 
house, preparing for the final departure. He looked out 
on the wheal, which was black and grim, and saw a 
magpie sitting on one of the protruding timbers. Then 
the postman came round the bend of the road with a 
brown bag swinging from his shoulder. 

“ Two letters vor ye, sir,” shouted Bessie. 

George was soon dressed ; it was an operation which 
only required five minutes, then he shuffled down-stairs, 
looking like a tramp on the roads, and picked up the 
letters. He received so few that the sight of two envel- 
opes was a real excitement. 

There was a business letter, which he opened first. 
It was from his agent, and merely said, ‘‘ Send me up 


412 Heather 

some more of those pictures. I can sell a few of them 
cheap.” 

George shook his head and went off to tell Bubo ; every 
such letter was presented to the senior partner, who 
always scratched his ear over them and looked profound, 
which was his way of recommending extreme caution. 

“ Bubo, I can’t understand this descendant of Judas 
Iscariot. This is the second time in a month he has 
written asking for rubbish, and yet he grumbles when I 
send a few pictures, and declares he can’t get them off his 
hands. We are not business folk, but we have a little 
common-sense. Verily I fear me there is guile in Israel.” 

George took the other letter and approached the win- 
dow. The mists were rolling off rapidly and the sun 
was breaking through. It was going to be another fine 
day, bringing more March dust, which would never beg its 
bread, more splendour to the little mountains and wealth 
for the land; a good day for tillage. The very day when 
a man might go mad with joy if he was only a success, 
if he could run upon the moor shouting and singing, “ I 
have won the fight, I have come through, I have con- 
quered the world.” That is the one day of life for the 
struggler, the one best day of all ; when he wakes and 
puts a hand to his aching head and finds a wreath there; 
when he gets a decree written in letters of gold and 
signed by God Himself ; when he knows he has not 
broken heart and health for nothing. That is the day 
when he rushes into a solitude for the mere joy of being 
alone to cut his antics; and he wouldn’t tread on a worm 
or hurt a fly for a thousand pounds; and he must fling 
himself upon Mother Earth and bite a good mouthful from 
her body. 

George tore that letter open quickly when he recog- 
nised his aunt’s handwriting. The eccentric lady had 
been dead to him for two years, and he wondered what 
she would have to say then. The first lines were apolo- 
getic, but she explained that months ran by so quickly, 
and she hated writing to any one whom she never saw, 
as it seemed so useless, and the animals claimed so much 
of her attention ; and as George would see by the date of 
the letter, she had got as far as “ My dear nephew ” a 
week ago, but then a monkey was taken with a kind of 


About Laurel Leaves 413 

sickness, very grievous, and had to be nursed with much 
diligence, but she was able to thank God for sparing the 
dear pet to her, and it was so much better and livelier 
as to be able to bite a new servant. As for herself the 
neuralgia was much better but the rheumatism was worse, 
so there wasn’t much to be placed on the credit side; 
and then a queer feeling seized hold of George, and he 
became cold all over, while his body tingled, his head 
was dazed, his heart began to thump, and he swayed from 
side to side and had to put out his hand for the wall. 

“Bubo!” he gasped; “I’ve forgotten how to read. 
Come here. Bubo.” 

What was all this his aunt was writing about? Now 
that he was such a rich and famous man he might just 
as well pay back that money she had given him, for she 
was certain the dear animals wanted it more than he 
could, and she would have to compensate that wretched 
servant because the dear monkey had bitten her. As 
George knew, she didn’t go about much, but a few people 
called on her, chiefly those who were interested in zoology ; 
and one lady in particular who often dropped in to say 
rude things about some one else’s wife and her own 
husband, and scandal of that sort; and she was always 
talking about George and saying what a rage he had 
become all of a sudden, and what a price his pictures 
were fetching; and this lady had been to see the exhibi- 
tion of his principal works in Bond Street, and would 
very much like one herself, only the price was quite pro- 
hibitive, and she was certain her husband spent half his 
money upon that other man’s beastly wife. She herself 
was delighted that George was such a success. His 
Uncle Will had always said George had a wonderfully 
fine head and he ought to do something with it 

“ Breakfast be upon the table, sir,” called Bessie; but 
her master was reeling about the room, March-mad and 
screaming — 

“ A gallows, Mrs. Chown. Not a little one for Bubo, 
but a great big one, fifty cubits high, for the seed of 
Benjamin.” 

“ What be yew wanting, sir?” asked Bessie, appearing 
at the door. 

“ Give me your hand, Mrs. Chown. I must touch 


Heather 


414 

something honest or I shall go mad. Why have you 
always returned me the odd halfpenny? Your honesty 
has been perfectly vile, Mrs. Chown. What a glorious 
day ! Did you ever see anything like it? March dust 
blowing up along the road, and we’re like it, we’re not 
going to beg our bread, we’re seeking it out in desolate 
places and finding it, with butter upon it, Mrs. Chown, 
aw, and jam and cream as well. Where is Bill? Come 
here. Bill. Bring me a battleaxe. Bill, and tell it out in 
Jewry that George is nigh. Bill,” roared the wild artist, 
reeling for the door, ” it’s a whole holiday, man ! Down 
with work and beer. Here’s half-a-crown for you, Bill,” 
shouted George, turning out his ragged pockets and find- 
ing nothing. Then he struck the dazed miner upon the 
shoulder, knocked him against the wall, hit him in the 
ribs, laughing wildly, and plunged to the gate of his tiny 
garden, shouting, ” Look after Bubo, Mrs. Chown. He’s 
having a fit just now. His rich uncle has died and left 
him a fortune. Give him two fresh mice on toast and a 
cup of tea.” Then he went off at full speed along the 
side of the moor. 

The Chowns looked at each other gravely. It was no 
laughing matter to have their master in that terrible 
condition. 

” Gone,” said Bill, touching his head and rubbing his 
ribs. ” I knew ’twould end that way.” 

” Aw, poor gentleman. He wur as kind and tender a 
body as ever lived,” said Bessie, thinking she was pro- 
nouncing George’s epitaph, and not in the least aware 
that his insanity meant the beginning of their prosperity. 

George was soon back. It was no time for fooling. 
He must start off for London at once and find out every- 
thing, and take his chance of being arrested for homicide. 
What a simple creature he had been to believe that lying 
Jew ! to live in the solitude of Wheal Dream, never glanc- 
ing at anything but a local paper, never seeing a London 
publication of any kind, never dreaming that he might 
be making a big name and somebody else an equally big 
profit out of it ! He was quiet enough when he got back, 
assured Bessie he was not dangerous, told her he was off 
in an hour’s time to distant lands, then swallowed some 
breakfast, tossed a few rags and his battered toilet 


About Laurel Leaves 


415 

necessities into a disreputable bag, and made wild 
promises to Bubo, like a man standing for Parliament. 

“The sentence of being hanged by the neck has been 
commuted into one of mouse-stuffing for life,” he shouted. 
He couldn’t talk that morning. “ You shall have a gold 
chain for your neck, another to swing across your 
stomach. You shall be sheriff of Dartmoor and Lord 
Mayor of Wheal Dream, and you shall be taken to church 
in state and a circus-car. The senior partner of a big 
business has to put up with such things. Good Heavens ! 
Bubo, did you ever see such weather? It is June, and the 
calendar is three months slow.” 

George reached London that evening, and went im- 
mediately to the shop of one who sold prints near the 
Strand. He had known him well in the old days; and 
when he got there and learnt that the printseller was 
dead he realised what a long way off those days were. 
A son had the business, and he glanced rather contemptu- 
ously at the shabby figure with the bushy beard and 
bulging bag, and was prepared to say he could do nothing 
for him, when George cried heartily — 

“ I remember you as a youngster when you used to 
run messages for your father. I’m George Brunacombe. ” 

The printseller became sociable at once, said he was 
glad to see Mr. Brunacombe, and began to congratulate 
him, when George broke in sharply, “ What’s my 
position?” 

“ I imagine you know better than any one can tell 
you,” said the other in some astonishment. 

“ I ask you as a man in touch with the world of art 
to tell me.” 

“ Well, you’re the fashion just now. Every one talks 
about the Brunacombe realism. We have some mezzo- 
tints of your principal works and they sell like hot 
cakes. ’ ’ 

“ Wait till I get at him,” George muttered. 

“ ‘ Mysteries in sunlight.’ You remember that expres- 
sion used by one of the critics? You have made a big 
hit, Mr. Brunacombe. I understand all the pictures in 
Bond Street are sold?” 

“ The whole damned lot, and so am I,” George shouted. 

The printseller stepped a little further back. Men of 


Heather 


416 

genius have such extraordinary habits, and the artist 
looked as if he wanted to murder somebody. 

“ How long have I been the rage? — is that the expres- 
sion?” cried George fiercely. 

” Certainly it is. Only this last year — as of course 
you know. But your pictures have been fairly popular 
for some time.” 

“Thanks,” said George grimly. “Your father was 
a good sort, and so are you. I’ll come and see you again 
some day;” and off he went, leaving behind him for the 
second time that day the impression that he was not 
mentally sound. 

It was dark when he reached the East End, and the 
place of business which he entered like a mighty wind 
was lighted at the back with a single gas-jet. The pro- 
prietor was a thrifty soul. He was an old man, bent and 
wizened, and he was bending over a huge ledger, which 
was to him as sweet as honey, making noises like a 
kettle which wants to boil but can’t quite manage it ; and 
when he heard those heavy steps he started round ; too 
late to defend himself, however, for in a moment he 
was seized and shaken until his false teeth dropped out, 
and his false hair was pulled off, while his false tongue 
howled thieves and murder; and then the whole of his 
false body was thrown upon the floor and trampled on. 

“ The next time you chew pigs’ trotters remember 
George Brunacombe,” shouted the artist, who had not 
lived upon Dartmoor for nothing. 

The old man dragged himself away, glad to find he 
could do so in one piece, and his wife came running up 
with a carving-knife, supposing that robbers had broken 
into the place; but when she heard the ruffian’s name 
she became sorrowful like her husband. He was abject in 
spite of his bruises ; he knelt on the floor before George 
and declared he was his slave; and did it so well from 
force of habit that the artist was soon feeling almost 
ashamed of his violence. He was only a poor old 
foreigner in a strange land, and he had worked night and 
day for the distinguished visitor. 

“ Five shillings, half-a-crown, for a picture,” George 
broke in, longing to reduce his nose to the level of his 
face. 


About Laurel Leaves 


417 

“ No no, my dear Mr. Brunacombe, my very dear 
gentleman. That was on account only. I have money 
for you, Mr. Brunacombe, very much money, hundreds 
of pounds, my dear sir. You shall have the money now, 
you shall have fifty per cent. I would not deceive you, 
by the holy religion I would not. Did I not say, Rebecca, 
I had hundreds of pounds for Mr. George Brunacombe?” 

The lady agreed with oaths and gibberish; and added 
that her husband was a man of God. 

” Paying and owing are very different things. I never 
sold you a single picture outright,” said George, swing- 
ing his bag about as though he meant to strike with it. 
‘‘You were my agent, and I have your letter of agree- 
ment. Now I am going to a solicitor ” 

‘‘ No no, my dear Mr. Brunacombe. These lawyer 
gentlemen are so expensive, and they get the last farthing. 
There is the money waiting, my dear sir, hundreds of 
pounds, and you shall have a cheque this very night. 
That exhibition of yours is such a great and marvellous 
success. I have been honest with you, Mr. George Bruna- 
combe. I could have kept your name out of it.” 

‘‘You would never have dared,” said George hotly. 

‘‘ Isaac told me he had much money for you, Mr. 
Brunacombe,” cried the lady, who also knew her part. 
‘‘ He and I have lived together for forty years, and I know 
he would not harm a dove.” 

‘‘ Damn the doves. He has tried to rob me,” said 
George roughly. ‘‘ Get up, you old pork-butcher, and 
give me an account of every blessed picture of mine you 
have handled.” 

‘‘ Oh, my dear gentleman, how you have bruised my 
poor bones,” muttered the old wretch wickedly. 

‘‘ Summons me if you like,” growled George. 

” No, no, my dear gentleman, I will forgive you. But 
you will not go to the lawyers, my very dear Mr. Bruna- 
combe? Say you will not ruin me. I am old and grey- 
headed, and so is Rebecca my wife.” 

‘‘ Stop your whining and open your books,” said 
George. “ If you can satisfy me I’ll leave the law out. 
I don’t want it published all over the place what an ass 
I’ve been.” 

‘‘It is fifty per cent.,. Mr. Brunacombe. I must have 
27 


Heather 


418 

fifty per cent.,” said the Jew eagerly. “ I have made you 
a big man, my dear gentleman, and you have beaten 
me and bruised my bones.” 

Two hours later George left the place, tired but elated, 
with the cheque in his pocket. The world was at the 
feet of this big shabby man. No more poverty, no more 
grubbing in the dirt; he thought of the pictures in the 
Wheal House, the best he had done; he stamped his foot 
on the stones and laughed, and scattered coppers to the 
street children. But soon he was sorrowful. Happiness 
is not worth much unless there is some one to join in 
it ; success is a poor thing if there is no one to share it 
with; and the only one had gone from him for ever. The 
decree had been signed too late. 

George spent several days in London, doing business of 
a satisfactory nature; buying decent apparel for himself 
and presents for others; weird reptiles and monsters for 
his aunt, handsome gifts for the Chowns and his lonely 
friend the Rector of Downacombe, a large book of pictures 
for poor old Uncle, and something especially good for 
Gregory Breakback. Then he went home again, holding 
his head up at last, young-looking, clean-shaven. Success 
had made a fresh boy out of shabby old George. He 
went back to Wheal Dream, not as an unreclaimed patch 
of ground, but smoothly tilled like a garden with all the 
weeds and rough growth removed ; and after Bubo had 
welcomed him with many wing-flappings and owlish 
hosannas, Bessie hurried in with a new apron for the 
occasion, and placed before the master a letter which had 
come the very morning after he went away. 

The weather had changed, as it will in March when 
the month has paid its entry fee of a few pecks of dust, 
and winter had come again with a black and biting wind. 

Bessie was outside crying with sheer happiness, for 
George had brought her presents and she was to receive 
good wages in the future; while Bill was laughing and 
wanting to treat every one because he was happy too; 
no more tramps to and from the copper-mine, no more 
sore feet and backaches, no more blisters from over- 
work; for Bill was to be manservant at the Wheal House, 
and his duties would be light. He was going up ; he 
too had done his best and was getting his reward. When 


About Laurel Leaves 


419 

the king comes to his throne his servants are not for- 
gotten ; and when a man succeeds he brings success to 
others. Bubo was chuckling too, and turning up his 
beak at the idea of mice apart from sportive purposes ; 
henceforth he would require raw beef cut from the 
tenderest joints. 

Only George was silent; and he was walking to and 
fro. 

It was not dark yet; time to get to Downacombe. It 
was glorious to find himself again in Dartmoor wind, 
which denies a man weariness. George set off at the 
top of his speed, and he was bending again, and there 
were lines on his face which the joy of life had lately 
banished. Sorrow had come back, and though he had 
won so much he felt then he had won nothing, for the 
heart’s desire is everything, and the brain’s desire mere 
flattery. 

“ Money will buy everything, from human souls to a 
red-herring,” George muttered, as he raced down the 
lane. ” If that brute wasn’t a madman, why then mad- 
ness doesn’t exist. She may be a widow.” 

He winced at the word. It sounded ugly somehow, 
just as the thought of money is ugly to young people in 
love, but it spelt freedom, not the right to go about the 
world taking one woman after another, making harlots 
and breeding bastards, but the right to claim one only and 
cling to her. 

” Leigh,” George shouted, as he broke into the horrible 
silence of the rectory, ” I’ve done it. I’m a man, not 
a bug on the back of the moor. I’m rolling the world 
about and sucking it like an orange. I’ve got England 
in one pocket and America in the other, and at the 
name of George Brunacombe every cheque-book opens. 
Give me a shake, dear man, and say you’re glad.” 

The rector was sitting in the twilight, and when his 
face came up George shivered. It was small, the hair 
was almost snow-white, and the man’s blood seemed to 
be blue and thickening. He was reading; it was a book 
upon roses ; and there were no postcards round the 
room. 

” What’s wrong?” said George. 

” Jt is good to see a friendly face,” Leigh answered. 


Heather 


420 

“ You are ill,” cried George. ” I don’t generally tell 
a man so, because it makes him feel worse, but I tell 
you. I want to frighten you, to root you out of this 
hole. It’s the silence,” George muttered, ” not the soli- 
tude. A man can endure solitude up on Dartmoor where 
there is always roaring wind, but this silence rots. I’m 
a success, Leigh. I’m making a fortune. Come on, old 
man. Laugh with me and grow young again.” 

Leigh did not even smile. He listened to the artist’s 
story, although it was not the part which he had come 
to tell, then muttered a few incoherent words. He was 
glad, but could not express himself; he had lost the gift, 
as he had lost every faculty except that of gardening. 
Decay had reached his heart. 

George stayed late that night; he did not leave the 
house until past eleven, and during that time found out 
many things. Maggie Leigh, the rose, came first; she 
was a commercial success. Then came Maggie Leigh, the 
wife; she was not a commercial success. 

“Go on,” said George. “I’m going to get it out of 
you. I have brought the secret of my heart to trust 
with you, and I mean to have yours. Go on. Tell me, 
man. It’s killing you keeping it to yourself in this silent 
place. What’s the good of a friend if you can’t make 
use of him? Come along,” he said, standing behind 
Leigh, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

” I’ll tell you — wait a moment. It chokes me.” 

George turned the lamp down. The firelight flickered 
about the walls, but it was cold somehow, and the only 
sound in the house was that incessant creaking of the 
woodwork. 

” She has left me in every sense,” Leigh whispered. 

” I was afraid of it,” George muttered. 

” A foreigner, a man who calls himself an Italian count, 
a drunken gambling scoundrel. It is this creature I have 
been pinching and scraping for. It was to pay his 
gambling debts that I burnt those cottages. It was to 
maintain him in his vices; and those letters of my wife 
were lies.” 

” He’ll get no more, anyhow,” George muttered. 
” Leigh, I want you to promise me that you’ll resign 
the living and clear out of Downacombe, and that you 


About Laurel Leaves 


421 

will leave the wretched village alone and not burn any 
more of it.” 

“Just two cottages,” said Leigh eagerly. “They 
stand apart and are very rotten. I am only waiting for 
hot weather.” 

“ I won’t have it,” said George strongly. “I’m not 
a strict moralist, but these poor folk must be left alone. 
My dear man, don’t you see how vile it is?” 

“ Why so? They belong to me, and they are simply 
tumbling down. The insurance companies are wealthy and 
have received a lot of money from me all these years. 
It is only right I should get something back.” 

George made a gesture of despair; on some matters 
Leigh was hopeless. 

“ You’ll go away? Promise me that.” 

“ I will, Brunacombe. I have sworn it to myself every 
day the last month. I must go. I am terrified. I seem 
to hear everything moving above and below the earth. 
Even the sound of a falling leaf hurts me.” 

“ Have you seen — I mean have you imagined those 
creatures again?” 

“ They went across the week after you saw them, then 
twice a week, and now every evening just as it gets dark, 
swaying from side to side. The curious part of it is 
that no one else has seen them. I have to look out for 
them. They fascinate me. I have put on my eucharistic 
vestments and tried to exorcise them, but it had no effect. 
I always wear the vestments when I celebrate the most 
solemn service of the Church,” he went on simply. “ The 
bishop disapproves, but I feel it is my duty to wear them. 
Have you ever seen my vestments, Brunacombe? They 
are so beautiful, and it is a real pleasure to put them on. 
I should like you to photograph me in them,” he said. 

“It is all fancy — about these dead and buried nuns,” 
said George almost angrily. “ Your brain is out of 
order. You will soon be seeing them every hour of the 
day. Get away as soon as you can.” 

“ Yes, I will resign at Easter. I will dig up the roses, 
and Jessie and I will find a healthier home.” 

“ Who is Jessie?” 

“ She was the cook. Now she keeps house for me. 
She is very good, and sings hymns beautifully.” 


422 


Heather 


“ Was she here in your wife’s time?” 

” Oh yes,” said Leigh tenderly. ” I was always very 
fond of Jessie.” 

George said no more. The skein was untangled at last, 
and he had to own that the mind of Leigh passed his 
understanding. A nicer and more kindly man he had 
never known; and yet possibly Maggie Leigh, the wife, 
was not altogether to be blamed for having gone to the 
bad ; there was room for pity if her husband, who also 
deserved pity more than blame, had been the one to set 
her feet upon the restless road. 

The rector improved wonderfully as they sat together 
and talked. He was perfectly sane, and somehow he was 
a good and ardent churchman, although his mind had 
never progressed beyond the stage of babyhood and he 
couldn’t tell right from wrong; and yet he could talk well 
and show extreme cleverness. He could advise others 
with enviable clearness, although he was unable to control 
himself. So the artist came to the matter which had 
brought him there. He produced the scrap of note-paper 
upon which Winnie had written her question, showed it 
to Leigh, and in an anxious voice asked him what it 
meant; knowing that in such matters his judgment was 
nearly always sound. 

Leigh read it through many times, then asked, ” Has 
she ever written to you before?” 

” She sent me a card at Christmas.” 

” Did you reply?” 

” I couldn’t. No address was given.” 

” What do you make of this yourself?” 

” Nothing,” said George miserably. ” I can’t be so 
conceited as to suppose she wants to see me.” 

” That is what I make of it. Her husband is dead.” 

“No, such creatures never die. They haven’t been 
married a year,” George said foolishly. 

” He was a poor creature for all his bluster. There was 
no long life about him,” Leigh muttered. ” He insulted 
me here, as I have told you. She signs herself by her 
maiden name. Isn’t that enough for you?” 

” You think that her sole object in writing to me was 
to sign herself by that name?” 

” I do — and to tell you she is in trouble.” 


About Laurel Leaves 


423 


“ What’s your advice?” 

“ Go down there, Brunacombe. She wants you. She 
always talked about you when she came to see me.” 

” I was a mad, blind, grovellingf worm,” cried George. 

” If she is free let my last official act be the joining 
of your hands. I would rather bless you two than any 
one,” said Leigh reverently. ” You have made me 
promise to leave Downacombe. Now you shall promise 
me to go to Perranzabuloe. ” 

“To-morrow,” cried George with all his heart; and 
his face began to shine again. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


ABOUT UNCONVENTIONAL CONDUCT 

On a cold March day any traveller by the North Corn- 
wall line may feel conceited as well as numbed. He 
shivers because the wind tries to shatter the windows 
from Egloskerry onwards ; he is proud because he cannot 
think what the railway would do without him; for two 
or three shillings he has apparently bought the train, a 
rheumatic locomotive which wobbles and totters sea- 
wards, and a lot of little weather-beaten stations with 
two or three dummy men thrown in at each one, looking 
like stiff Shems, Hams and Japhets standing on wooden 
plates all ready for the Ark. The train stops at every 
one of these stations, possibly to rest the machinery, for 
nobody gets in and nobody gets out, and the traveller gets 
frightened at last, and sits well back in a corner lest he 
should be discovered and mistaken for a runaway lunatic. 
There are no towns or villages to bring comfort and con- 
solation to these solitary stations ; just a cottage or two, 
which the traveller rather suspects are only put there for 
decorative purposes, something for him to look at as the 
train limps by. There is no undignified whirling on the 
North Cornwall line, no rude and bustling movement, but 
aristocratic and gouty hobbling. Nobody is in a hurry 
on that wild coast ; there are no active pedestrians on the 
lonely roads to make the trains look foolish; every one 
moves slowly and appears to take a short rest between 
each step; but, then, every train and traveller have to 
face the wind from the Atlantic, which somehow never 
seems to blow from behind. 

It was a very cold March day, and George for the first 
time owned the North Cornwall line, the good-will of the 
same, stations and dummy-men, and a train somewhat 

424 


About Unconventional Conduct 425 

soiled by weather. He was in a first-class compartment, 
which was a useless piece of extravagance, as the notice 
of five seats each side painted up everywhere was simply 
humorous. George enjoyed railway travelling; he liked 
to stare out of the window and see the things go by; on 
the North Cornwall line in March there is not much to 
see except mist, black clouds and tearful windows, but 
upon that day a little snow was thrown in, possibly out of 
compliment to the distinguished artist; and the wind 
shrieked all the time. The men who work on that line 
must get giddy sometimes. 

“ They call me a realistic painter,” George muttered. 
“ Some day I’ll send up a blank canvas and call it North 
Cornwall. That would mean no work, while it would be 
true to Nature. ” 

The train dragged into Delabole, past the wonderful 
slate quarries, and seemed to expire at the already dead 
station with a big gasp. It was dreary enough there, a 
blank canvas expressed it, but only a few miles away was 
a furious life — the indigo sea raging upon Trebarwith 
Strand and bombarding Tintagel with great guns. No 
painter could represent that. And not a mile from all that 
noise was the peace that sick folk sigh for; lanes spiritual 
with primroses and voluptuous with premature births of 
spring; and tiny villages, like happy shelters seen in 
dreams, with soft, un-English saintly names. When the 
sun pushed himself through those mists, as he would in 
April, producing dust and butterflies, the North Cornwall 
line would wake up and the little stations would under- 
stand what they were put there for, and the harsh, foreign 
language of London would be heard in that land. 

Two more stops, and the train entered the Dutch-like 
scenery of Wadebridge and fell into a comatose condition 
at its station. George tumbled out, redolent of all things 
new; clothes, boots and bag smelling of the shop, gloves 
making his hands awkward, a hat of the newest style 
upon his close-cropped head, his chin fragrant with shav- 
ing-soap and his pockets reeking of currency. Nobody 
would ever have recognised the ragged artist of Wheal 
Dream. The coach was waiting on the road, the four 
horses fretting, the guard playing with his horn, which 
was nearly as long as himself — there is a fine eighteenth- 


Heather 


426 

century touch about travel in out-of-the-way parts in the 
west — and the driver jumped excitedly when he saw George 
Brunacombe. He was in a hurry to be off, as he wanted 
to get across St. Breock’s Downs before dark. 

“ Box-seat,” said George. 

“ Right, sir,” said the driver, who seemed a very excit- 
able person. Not many travellers craved for the box that 
time of year, and he liked having company. ” Going to 
Newquay, sir?” 

” I am,” said George. 

” Ever been there avore, sir?” 

” I have not,” said George, observing to himself, 
“This is a very funny fellow.” 

“ Fine place, sir. You’ll open your eyes when you see 
Newquay. But it will be pitch dark and you won’t see 
nothing,” said the man, with a most portentous gravity. 

George climbed up and they were off, rumbling up the 
principal street, the driver lifting his whip to every damsel, 
the guard sounding his trumpet like an apocalyptic angel. 

“ That’s Egloshayle church yonder, sir,” said the driver, 
maintaining his severe countenance while he spoke in a 
mirthful manner. “ The parson of the parish built the 
bridge over the Camel, not the present parson, sir, but one 
avore ’en — lived hundreds and thousands o’ years ago. 
’Tis the finest bridge in the country and in the world, sir. 
The parson built ’en ’cause he didn’t like the folks getting 
drownded as they crossed the ford, which they used to do 
in them days, sir, cross the ford and get drownded at tjie 
same time, sir, and parson didn’t like it, so he built the 
bridge. There never was such a bridge as Wadebridge, 
not the town, sir, but the bridge across the Camel which 
was built, sir, by the parson ” 

“All right,” said George. “Let’s have something 
else.” 

“ Going to Newquay, sir?” 

“ Yes,” said George patiently. 

“ Ever been there avore, sir?” 

“ Not to my knowledge.” 

“ Fine place, sir. You’ll open your eyes ” 

“ What’s that over there?” interrupted the artist. 

“ Mist, sir, and the sky, and above that the heavenly 
country, as they ses.” 


About Unconventional Conduct 427 

‘ I mean lower down,” said George impatiently. 

” Padstow, sir. Don’t ye never go there. A dirty 
stinking hole full o’ rotten fish, and ’tis the only harbour 
in North Cornwall, sir, though it ain’t any use ’cause ’tis 
all sanded up, and ’tis so dangerous to get into the harbour 
that no skipper dares to try, sir, and when he gets there 
he can’t come inside ’cause o’ the sand, sir. They tries 
to fix the sand by planting grass over it.” 

“ Not at the bottom of the harbour?” 

” No, sir, round Sinkineddy church yonder. They dug 
the church out o’ the sands, and has a divine service there 
every other Sunday, God willing. My wife’s mother used 
to^ go to ’en, sir. She lives in Padstow, which is a dirty, 
stinking hole. They take the sand away for manure, 
sir, millions of tons of it every year.” 

” Aren’t you getting a bit mixed?” said George. 

” No, sir, they don’t mix it wi’ nothing. Just takes it 
away and spreads it on the land, and when the ships tries 
to get into the church they can’t, sir, ’cause ’tis dangerous 
and all sanded up, and they gets carried on the rocks off 
Trevose ” 

” Now you’re talking about the harbour.” 

” No, sir, the harbour be over there. The church be 
yonder, and the sand, sir ” 

‘‘That’s enough sand.” 

‘‘ Going to Newquay, sir?” 

‘‘ Oh, shut up,” said George. 

‘‘ Ever been there avore, sir?” 

‘‘ Where are we? What’s this howling wilderness?” 

‘‘ St. Breock’s Downs. No man’s land, they calls it. 
Mixed weather up here, sir.” 

‘‘ Look out,” cried George. ‘‘ Here’s a girl.” 

It was getting dark, and as the coach rattled round a 
bend in the wild upland a small girl appeared at the cross- 
roads, standing between her mother and her clothes-box. 
They were both crying, for the little girl was, plainly 
enough, leaving her home and going into service for the 
first time. No doubt they had been waiting there an 
hour, dreadfully afraid of missing the coach, standing in 
the cutting wind saying good-bye, and the mother begging 
her daughter to be good and the girl promising she would 
try. They were kissing each other furiously now that the 


Heather 


428 

coach was really in sight. It made a pathetic picture 
upon St. Breock’s Downs. 

The guard soon slung the plain wooden box to the top 
of the coach, bundled the girl inside, prevented the mother 
from tumbling under the wheels, and the horses were off 
again. George saw a dark, bleak road stretching away 
into No Man’s Land, and the poor little woman stand- 
ing on it with her handkerchief to her eyes. Somewhere 
down that road was a lonely cottage in the wind and 
solitude of that wild land, and it would be still more lonely 
now. 

As the coach climbed up, snow came down in thick 
masses, driving along at a fine speed into their faces. 
The driver was silent ; his eyes were shut and he fell all 
over George, righted himself, then fell the other way. 
The reins trailed loosely from his gloved hands, and it 
was obvious he had no control whatever over the horses. 
At last it dawned upon George that the man was drunk. 
That accounted for his manner ; and all the time he 
remained as severe as a Judge of Assize. George pulled 
him about, and shouted at him ; and the man opened his 
eyes and asked in a sleepy voice — 

“ Going to Newquay, sir?” 

There was no sense left in the man now that the snow 
and wind had numbed him. They were nearly at the top 
of the bleak upland among the barrows and tors, and the 
weather was getting wilder as the driver got denser. 
George punched him severely, but obtained no satisfaction 
except the question, “ Ever been there avore, sir?” and 
then as the downward road commenced, and the man who 
was supposed to be in authority threatened to roll off the 
box any moment, George put an arm round him and with 
the other tugged at the reins to keep the horses up. The 
driver was immensely amused by all this, though he re- 
tained his severe countenance and remarked that Newquay 
was a fine place and the gentleman would open his eyes 
considerably when he saw it. He had an unpleasant idea 
that George was not quite sober, only he couldn’t say as 
much and insult the gentleman ; but his countenance plainly 
expressed disgust at such conduct. 

So they rolled off the downs, the wind was left behind, 
there was no more snow, and the sky cleared for the first 


About Unconventional Conduct 429 

time on the journey. The coach went down into the 
combe beyond with a speed which would have made a train 
of the North Cornwall line sick and yellow with envy. 
The driver quickly recovered in the milder atmosphere, was 
able to hold himself upright and inquire anxiously if there 
was any possibility of George going to Newquay; and 
then on the top of the hill in front stood out St. Columb 
Major, like a little town upon the Rhine. The guard 
began to tootle, the driver put upon himself the sternness 
of a major prophet, and wagged his whip like a pastoral 
staff, the coach rolled up to the door of the inn ; and 
George hurried away to the fire to get the stiffness out of 
him, while his partner upon the box was called to the bar, 
and went with a godly countenance, which seemed to imply 
that he was going there to discharge the duty of distri- 
buting a handful of tracts and saying a few kind words to 
those who were therein. 

When the coach started on the next stage George was 
inside with the little servant girl, three large men, and two 
women, who were in tears and black clothing. He was 
not going to be frozen and frightened again, though the 
guard had whispered reassuringly — 

“ He’s all right, sir. Never had an accident in his 
life, but he can’t keep the horses straight unless he has a 
drop. He’m one of those sort what the more ’em has 
the soberer ’em gets. He’s got a natural genius for 
liquor and horses. They tak’ to ’en as kind as babies to 
their mother. ” 

It was not cheerful inside the coach ; two of the men 
snored, the third had a violent cold, the women were 
sniffing furiously, and the little girl sobbed outright. She 
had tucked up her bright blue frock to keep it clean, as it 
was the only one she had got — that mother and she had 
sat up late for several nights to get it done — and she 
wanted to create a good impression in her new home and 
start life well. She wore a bright red petticoat under- 
neath, all very fine, and that too had been made at home. 
The poor little thing was only sixteen, and looked almost 
innocent. The coach was heading straight for the sea, 
and the wind came against it with a doleful noise. George 
began to feel depressed too, as he wondered what was 
going to happen. 


Heather 


430 


“ Columb Minor,” the guard shouted, omitting the 
saintly prefix, as he was a good Methodist. 

It was merry enough there, though it was dark and 
tempestuous. The bells had gone mad in the tower, and 
people flocked along the street, making the horses plunge ; 
and when George put his head out he saw a nimble old 
man trotting down the path, while some young folks ran 
after him and all the people cheered. It was a lively sight 
after the misery inside the coach. 

‘‘ Is it revel time?” he asked. 

” ’Tis the old clerk’s birthday,” came the answer. 
” He’m a hundred and something, I don’t know how 
much, but he’m going to live for ever, I reckon. Folk 
never die on this coast. ’Tis bad to be an undertaker in 
North Cornwall.” 

The coach rattled along, left the cheering crowd, and 
plunged into dark country again, while George found him- 
self repeating those pleasant words, ” Folk never die on 
this coast.” It must be strange, he thought, to live over 
the hundred and feel well and active, and go on making 
plans for the future. And then the little girl opposite 
trod on his foot and sobbed an apology. She got out 
here, at the cross-roads, where puddles shone by the light 
of the lamps and a big clump of firs groaned drearily ; and 
there she would have to wait until a cart came for her. 
It would not hurry, as she was of no importance. George 
saw her standing in the mud beside her box, her new blue 
frock gathered up to her knees, displaying the glorious 
red petticoat so nice and neat. It seemed cruel somehow 
to leave the poor little sixteen-year-old thing alone at those 
solitary cross-roads. 

Newquay at last, and George jumped out, to be greeted 
by the solemn and apparently teetotal driver with a salute 
of his whip and the most respectful question — 

” Ever been here avore, sir?” 

The artist gave no reply. He was beginning to feel 
choky and nervous now that he was only seven miles from 
his destination, and he asked himself what he had really 
come for. It was a mad journey recommended by a kindly 
madman. Just because Winnie had written him a note 
he was tearing about Cornwall in wild March weather by 
way of answering it. But why had she signed herself by 


About Unconventional Conduct 431 

her maiden name? There was no getting away from that; 
and if it wasn’t an invitation for him to — well, to come 
and see her, what was it? He thought also of the dream 
which his old wheal had sent up to him, and of Winnie’s 
terror of being left alone. She wanted him and had, in a 
way, commanded his presence. 

George went to an hotel and had some food. It was 
then nearly nine o’clock, and he was feeling feverishly 
restless. He could not sit still in the smoking-room, but 
kept reading that tiny letter and wondering what Winnie 
was doing and whether she was miserable and what had 
happened to Halfacre; and then he started, for a new 
thought came to him, the most obvious thing of all which 
is always the one that occurs last. She was suffering. 
She was appealing to him as a friend in her extremity. 
Had they not played together, coldly and diffidently cer- 
tainly, but still with a dangerous kind of friendliness in 
St. Michael’s Wood? And perhaps his manner had told 
her something, and he remembered — good heavens, he 
could remember everything then ! — that her pretty eyes^ 
had been moist sometimes and her fingers had made a 
clinging farewell as they left his. Then with another flash 
came the ugly memory of Halfacre, his strange manner, 
wild aspect, his inane pursuit of that harmless bee. And 
that letter had been sent ten days ago. 

George went out, sought the manager and almost 
collared him. “ I want a carriage at once,” he said. 
“ Anything will do, as long as the horse is good. I must 
get to Perranzabuloe in an hour.” 

” It’s very late,” came the answer. 

” I’ll give the man a sovereign for himself if he’s round 
in ten minutes,” said George. ” Here, do you know a 
cottage called Sandycote?” showing him the address at 
the head of Winnie’s note. 

” No; but there are a lot of scattered cottages along the 
coast. They will tell you in the village.” 

Money told its usual tale ; George realised the blessed 
power of it then. He was soon off, and the driver plied his 
whip so well than in less than an hour they were in the 
middle of a sandstorm, which was St. Piran’s usual hint 
of his saintly and apostolic nearness. A cottage appeared 
and George jumped out; but the inhabitants had gone to 


432 


Heather 


bed and would not answer. On they went with eyes 
smarting, for the wind was doing its best, and another 
white cottage started out. George knocked and roared ; 
a voice answered in curses, and presently a head appeared 
somewhere in the region of the roof. 

“ Where’s Sandycote?” George bellowed. 

“ Two miles beyond. You’ve passed the road. What 
be you going there for? ’Tis empty.” 

” Where are they?” came George’s tempestuous cry. 

” The man’s gone— — ” 

” Dead?” 

“What? Bide there a minute. I be coming down,” 
said the fisherman, who was obviously interested. 

” Hurry,” shouted George, but his cry was not heard. 
Then the door opened and he tumbled inside. It was 
perfectly dark and the tenant couldn’t find a match. 

” Never mind a light. We can hear in the dark. 
Where’s the man? Is he dead?” 

” I don’t know as he is. He’s gone away. Who be 
you?” 

” Where is she — the lady?” 

” Aw, poor woman. ’Tis bad about she.” 

” Good God !” George muttered, beginning to sweat. 

” Be you her brother?” 

” Go on. Go on. ” 

” Her be dying, they ses. Where did I put them 
matches? Mind, sir. There be cloam on the dresser.” 

It was shaking and jarring. What mattered all the 
crockery in the world? 

” Where is she?” 

” To the parsonage; a matter of half-a-mile beyond.” 

” Thanks,” said George hoarsely. ” I’ll try and thank 
you better another time. Folk never die on this coast,” 
he muttered. He was outside already, in darkness and 
flying sand. ” Drive on,” he said. He was very cold, 
shivering, and muttering to himself, ” Too late, as usual, 
success too late, the journey too late, everything too late, 
and the money’s only good for almshouses.” 

There were lights in the parsonage, anyhow, above and 
below, lights that passed from one window to another 
with a hospital-like restlessness. George was nervous no 
longer; he knew what he had come for. The door was 


About Unconventional Conduct 433 

opened by the parson-seaman himself, still in his jersey, 
surrounded with the atmosphere of his wild coast. 

How is she?” cried George at once. It was no time 
for commonplaces. ” I am her friend. You can guess 
the rest.” 

The parson understood; he had learnt a lot about 
human nature, suffering and bodily endurance, while 
battling with the sea, bringing dead and living bodies to 
land. He led the artist in, asking no questions, and said 
gently — 

” The doctor says there is no hope. She is so weak, 
and won’t try to help herself, the disease is increasing, 
and it is only a question of time ” 

” She is alive then,” George broke in joyously. ” That 
is enough. I can do the rest. I know what she wants — 
the wind of Dartmoor. She dreads the sea. Where is 
the man — the madman?” 

” Not so much noise. She will hear,” begged the 
parson, for George was shouting. His shrinking self was 
dead and buried ; success in life had given him confidence 
and made him ignore his extraordinary position there. 
What was he but a stranger coming to claim another 
man’s wife? But love can’t be bothered with the old 
lady who presides over public morality, or machines in 
wigs that grind out law. George was not going to look 
back again. 

” Her husband has left the place with another woman,” 
said the parson. ” He ill-treated the poor girl, locked 
her up in a room with her mother, starved them ; a child 
was born. We rescued her just in time.” 

” While I was beating the Jew,” howled George, going 
to the fire-place, snatching up the poker. He was not fit 
for respectable people. ” I ought to have been here 
smashing his skull.” And there was a child, another 
little growth to continue the endless story of endurance. 
” Locked up in a room, starved. Why didn’t you shoot 
him, man? Why didn’t you take an oar and lay him out 
with it, tie him in a net and chuck him in the sea? Why 
didn’t you send for me?” 

” I will ask her mother to come and see you.” 

So Winnie had a mother, which did not seem at all 
necessary, and George began to hate her as well. He 
28 


Heather 


434 

Stood there with the poker in his hand, wanting to fight 
any one who should dare to come between another man’s 
wife and himself ; a vastly different George Brunacombe 
then from the timid artist who, in the days of poverty, 
would turn back and hide himself when he saw any one 
coming. 

The door had been partly open all the time, and George’s 
voice penetrated to every corner of the little house. 
Winnie was sitting up in bed excited. She had heard that 
voice before; it was like the wind of Dartmoor blowing 
into the room, and it was doing her good, bringing the 
smell of peat and heather across her bed. It was the 
voice of a god, not that of a man, the voice of Nature, 
the calm, healing wind telling her to lie down and get 
well, and assuring her that the storm was really over and 
a wall had been built between her fragile body and the 
destroying wind. The explanation that it was only the 
doctor did not satisfy Winnie at all. Then the parson 
came in and beckoned Mrs. Shazell to go with him. 

“ Who is it?” begged Winnie, fighting with her cough, 
leaning over the side of the bed, bright-eyed and pretty. 

“ A friend of yours. He did not mention his name.” 

“ With a grey beard and a dreadfully dusty coat? 
Mummy, go and brush it for him. I won’t die. I am not 
going to die.” 

Winnie was beginning to laugh, and first one dimple was 
born again and then the other. She could smell the moor. 
Like old Uncle, she felt herself lying out on it, swaying up 
and down on the heather, and the sun was shining, and 
spring was coming on and there would be no more snow. 

“ He’s a young man, clean-shaven, very well dressed.” 

“ No, don’t,” she whispered. “ That seems wrong. 
He’s my friend. Didn’t you say he is my friend? Run, 
Mummy, and I won’t cough once till you come back.” 

Winnie took the parson’s hand, and went on babbling a 
lot of shining and excited nonsense of all the wonderful 
things he would see and hear and smell when he went up 
on Dartmoor and rolled about in its wind. 

Mrs. Shazell went down. George was sitting on a chair, 
with the poker across his knees, and when she entered it 
clattered upon the floor. 

” I have come for her,” he said at once. 


“ I don’t 


About Unconventional Conduct 435 

care about the world, the flesh or the devil, but I have 
come for her to take her to Wheal Dream. Don’t be 
frightened. I am George Brunacombe, I am the famous 
artist,” he blustered. “ My pockets are full of money, 
and I’m going to furnish the Wheal House beautifully for 
you. I can’t help being queer. Tell her I have come to 
take her back to the moor. I am George Brunacombe, 
junior partner of the firm of Bubo and Brunacombe, manu- 
facturers of realistic pictures, known all over the world. 
Tell her I should have come long ago only I was away in 
London persecuting the Jews when her letter arrived.” 

” I am glad to see you, Mr. Brunacombe,” faltered the 
little lady, looking curiously like her daughter. 

“ Don’t keep her waiting. Go and tell her I have come 
to take you and her as my guests to the Wheal House, 
where she will get well again. Tell her it is all Bubo’s 
idea, and he is getting the rooms ready. You know what 
I mean. She doesn’t want me, but she wants the moor. 
She was always so fond of Wheal Dream, and tell her the 
spring flowers are coming up by St. Michael’s Ford, and 
the rivers are full and roaring at nights, and the waterfall 
is throwing spray all over the oak-trees. Tell her that. 
And I’ll send a telegram to Bubo to get your rooms 
furnished. We shall turn out of the place, for you won’t 
want two business men lumbering about. Tell her we 
will have a special train. The firm can stand it. Go and 
tell her,” cried George excitedly, ” and mind you say how 
happy it will make Bubo to have her in his house.” 

Mrs. Shazell went away with tears in her eyes. The 
poor soul was so frightfully in earnest. Winnie was hold- 
ing the parson’s hand, looking lovely, straining her ears. 
She was fighting again, she had everything to fight for; 
and when she heard what her mother had to say she 
begged to be allowed to get up and run round the room, 
just to show them how strong she was. 

“ Tell him I’ll come. Oh, Mummy, can’t we start at 
once? I want to go and sit by the Ford and watch the 
green water tumbling down. And tell him I’m so glad he 
has brushed his coat.” 

“ Who is Mr. Bubo?” asked her puzzled mother. 

“The owl, the dear little owl with only one leg,” 
laughed Winnie, who was not at all in the mood to go on 


Heather 


436 

with her dying. “ I am feeling so well,” she said. “ I 
can smell the wind.” 

Down w’ent Mrs. Shazell again. George had put a 
cushion on the floor and was trying to stand on his head. 
He was quite mad at the prospect of Winnie at the Wheal 
House being forced into growth again. He became im- 
patient when the lady sought to explain matters; how 
that Winnie had a husband and child, that the man had 
ill-used her, and gone off with another woman ; and she 
and Winnie had practically nothing; and, of course, they 
could not be dependent upon him. George only inter- 
rupted her every time with angry words. He couldn’t 
listen to such nonsense. He told her plainly he should 
lose his temper, and smash things with the poker, if she 
kept on. It was impossible to argue with him, and Mrs. 
Shazell had to give up trying. But George could not go 
until he had done one more thing. He scribbled a few 
lines on a scrap of paper and sent it up to Winnie. He 
knew it was not true that she had laughed at him in the 
days of his poverty, that it was only Berenice’s idle story, 
but still he wanted to set his mind at rest and see the 
shrine of St. Winifred absolutely spotless ; and when Mrs. 
Shazell came back with her answer, ‘‘It’s a wicked 
story,” he went away satisfied, and drove back to New- 
quay through the night. 

Next morning George telegraphed to Bessie, telling her 
to get the house furnished in the most approved style and 
not think about the money; and then he drove again 
towards St. Piran’s sands, laden with flowers and fruit. 
They were the best folk in the world at the parsonage, 
but they were poor; and George intended to claim the 
right of protecting this young married lady and giving 
her everything. 

That same day he saw the doctor, a bustling, general 
practitioner, who knew very little about Winnie’s disease, 
and was therefore inclined to paint a needlessly black 
picture regarding it. 

‘‘ What have you been doing to my patient?” he asked. 
‘‘ She is a different girl to-day.” 

‘‘ I am going to take her home. That is all,” George 
answered. 

The doctor said it was foolish. Winnie would never 


About Unconventional Conduct 437 

be strong enough to make the long journey, and even if 
she could it was no use. It would be kinder to do all 
that was possible for her there, and make her last days 
pleasant upon St. Piran’s sands. 

“ Years ago, when I was in London, a doctor gave me 
a few months to live,’^ said George. “ You can poke your 
fingers into me and find out what I am made of now. 
You don’t know us moorland folk. If you take savages 
and shut them up in houses they will contract the diseases 
of civilisation, which are unknown to them in their natural 
state. It’s the same with us. The smoke and the low- 
lands wipe us out.” George made an upward movement 
with his hand. ” Put us back on our native heather and 
we grow again.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


ABOUT A PAGAN SACRIFICE 

The Pethericks had gathered round the fire on Christ- 
mas night for the last time. Father Chown and Mr. 
Odyorne had done for John; and the family name was 
to be wiped off the map of Dartmoor which it had blotted 
for so long. The lawyer had kept his trap baited, but 
John and Ursula required such a lot of coaxing before 
they would enter; they were suspicious when the time 
came, and said they would think over it. They were 
always going, but never went. It was John who made 
difficulties by simply declining to leave the home where he 
had been born and where his ancestors had lived for at 
least four hundred years. 

John was not the same man after Christmas night. He 
was ill for some days without knowing what had hap- 
pened, or why his head was wounded, but he supposed 
Ursula had done it, and Father made no boasts. Weak 
though the old man was, he must have hammered too 
hard. John couldn’t work. He stumbled out in the 
morning to try, because he was fond of work, and for an 
hour he was strong enough, then pains in his head would 
bring him to a halt; or he would stoop and immediately 
become dizzy and fall about. His face was covered with 
cuts, and there was a nasty hole in his forehead ; he had 
always been ugly; now he looked terrible, and Ursula 
hated him more and pushed the poor fellow all over the 
place, taunting him with the loss of strength which 
delivered him into her hands. Father was frightened 
when he looked at John through his cracked spectacles, 
which gave the man two unpleasant heads instead of one; 
the sight made him dream at nights, and he would choke 
and entreat the powers of darkness not to flay him with 

438 


About a Pagan Sacrifice 439 

brambles for his sins. Father feared he might have 
hindered his spiritual advancement, and forfeited his right 
to a comfortable chimney corner in some heavenly man- 
sion, because he had tapped John reprovingly upon the 
head with a hammer. 

One day John went off for a load of faggot-wood, stand- 
ing up in his cart, and Ursula dismissed him from her 
presence with her usual word of parting, “ I hopes yew’ll 
never come back alive.” She had expressed the wish 
often enough, but it had never been realised; and that 
day her patience was to be rewarded. John came back 
alive, but lying in the cart, with a man leading the horse, 
and he was senseless. He had bent while standing in the 
cart, become dizzy, a wheel had struck a rock ; and that 
was to be the end of John. He had fallen upon his head. 

At first the accident made no stir, because men were 
always tumbling about the rocks, breaking various bones, 
and they were soon about again ; but when it was 
rumoured John was very ill, getting worse rapidly, and 
the doctor was hopeless concerning him, there was grief 
in Metheral and something not altogether unlike the 
gnashing of teeth. No death had occurred in the parish 
for a great number of years ; the grave by the porch 
remained unoccupied, but the claimants were more in 
number than ever. The weather of early spring scattered 
all manner of complaints. Willum Brokenbrow declared 
he was undoubtedly breaking up this time, although no- 
body agreed with him, and his appetite was excellent. 
Dame Brokenbone had a very severe cold, and had not 
been seen in chapel for more than a month. Several 
others were not feeling at all well. The competition was 
therefore in full swing; and John had tumbled on his 
head and become the favourite, although he was nothing 
but a boy of forty. No wonder the old people were 
upset. 

Brokenbrow spent most of his time passing along the 
road between Metheral and Wheal Dream making kind 
inquiries, but not a word could be got from Father, who 
sat in his corner, with red and rheumy eyes, feeling very 
miserable indeed. He had ceased to desire the grave and 
a public funeral ; he would have resigned all the costly 
treasures in his bedroom, even the piece of indiarubber 


Heather 


440 

which he had picked up at George’s door, to put John 
on his feet again. Sometimes he asked Ursula for a 
Bible, explaining that he was getting very old and it 
was time to make serious preparations for going home, 
but he only received the scornful answer that there was 
no such rubbish in the house. Father spent his evenings 
weeping, and hoping that the tears would be accounted 
unto him for righteousness. 

John grew steadily worse; he had rotted away his con- 
stitution with liquor, and that too had been Ursula’s 
doing ; the woman had tempted him and he had drunk. 
He was conscious, and knew he was going to die; for 
one thing his wife would not let him forget it, and men 
of the moor who have to keep their bed for many days 
resign themselves to the belief that their time has come. 
Ursula’s conduct was not pleasant, and sometimes it was 
indecent; but then she was always at the bottle, finding 
it necessary to sustain herself during the time of afflic- 
tion. The doctor had told her she must expect the worst ; 
which she did with enthusiasm; and putting on her seal- 
skin jacket went to interview the stout widow who always 
managed funerals with complete success. This was 
anticipating things somewhat, but Ursula did not mean 
to be bustled. She had known an affair of this kind 
completely spoilt from a social point of view from lack 
of time to make arrangements ; and, as she argued, it 
was not fair upon the neighbours to allow her own feelings 
to stand in the way. 

The large lady was full of sympathy and suggestions, 
although she could not help being merry, partly to cheer 
Ursula, but chiefly because she hoped shortly to pass into 
a third edition, having discovered an old and rather daft 
farmer who required something substantial for a help- 
meet; and the widow, who was ready enough to blush 
for the third time, possessed a few pounds, which had a 
trick of increasing under discussion. 

“ I’ll come across wi’ ye, my dear, and tak’ a look 
round the parlour,” she said. ” Poor dear John, as gude 
a man as ever lived, a man as any woman could be proud 
of. The Lord gives and takes away tu, my dear. Us 
wull get a proper bit o’ beef and plenty o’ pickles. I alius 
ha’ found pickles go well to a funeral. How many can 


About a Pagan Sacrifice 441 

ye seat in the parlour? But there, don’t ye worry. Yew 
ha’ got trouble enuff. I knaws how it be. Yew’m fair 
mazed wi’ it all. I ha’ been through it twice, my dear, 
and it du come wonderful easy second time. Yew’ll be 
going to church again next year, I reckon.” 

” John would never ha’ done vor Plymouth. Us would 
never ha’ got ’en off Dartmoor, and he would ha’ spoilt 
custom,” sobbed Ursula. ” I ses to myself ’tis all vor 
the best. I be a young woman,” she added proudly. 

“Aw ees, my dear, yew’ll get some fine young fisher 
captain, or mebbe a bosun in the Navy, vor your second. 
So yew be sot on going to Plymouth?” 

” I ha’ got a fine hotel,” said the deluded creature, who 
perhaps deserved a little punishment for the hardness of 
her heart. 

” Wull, I’ll be over this evening, and us ’ll arrange 
things proper,” said the stout lady. ” How about your 
clothes, my dear?” 

‘‘They’m ready,” said Ursula. 

” Have ye got plenty o’ handkerchiefs?” 

” Naw, I ain’t. ’Tis my first time,” said Ursula 
apologetically. 

” I’ll lend ye my six. They’m fine ones, wi’ black 
borders an inch wide, and I ha’ used ’em twice,” declared 
the lady. ” I can wash ’em out after yew ha’ used ’em.” 

John was lying on his back in the dirty bedroom, staring 
at the loose window and crumbling stonework. It seemed 
cruel to die in the spring after having come through the 
long winter, but luckily for John he had no imagination. 
Neither past nor future troubled him much; but the 
thought of his garden did. The potatoes were not in, 
the heap of manure was untouched, and would be spoiling 
in the sun. He wanted to get into his clothes and go 
down to the garden. One day’s work would get the 
potatoes in, and then he could return to bed feeling much 
more satisfied. It was terrible to be wasting fine weather 
while the garden remained untilled. 

He thought of little else, except whisky, which was a 
good thing, and the pain in his head, which was bad, 
but sometimes he recalled a very extraordinary thing 
called religion, which was served out in the stone chapels 
and churches ; and he had a vague recollection of his father 


Heather 


442 

going to Metheral every Sunday, in black garments, and 
coming back full of queer texts which he explained must 
be accepted by John if he desired to attain immortality. 
That was too big a word for an ignorant fellow who had 
spent his life among manure heaps. It brought no mean- 
ing to John, and as for old Petherick, why, he had gone 
away years ago and had disappeared completely from 
the life of the moor, although John knew where he could 
find him, in the churchyard under a big lump of granite. 
That was not living for ever. Old Petherick was just the 
same as one of those carcases on the moor, except that 
he was out of sight while the ponies’ bones were white 
and visible. He had assured John he would lie in the 
churchyard for a bit, and then come out and flap about 
like some old owl ; at least that is what John understood by 
his remarks ; but he knew perfectly well the old man 
had done nothing of the kind. The churchyard was like 
any of the commoners ; what it had it held. 

There was a good deal of activity in the house, and a 
savoury smell such as there had not been for a long time. 
Baked meats were being prepared in his honour, though 
he was not to partake of them. John began to feel dull. 
They were so busy down-stairs that there was no time to 
attend to him. The stout widow had taken possession 
of the house, and her voice was so shrill that John could 
hear everything she said, and the remarks were not en- 
couraging. All things were being done properly, if not 
exactly in good order. The parlour was being cleaned 
out, and all the old sticks were taken outside to be rubbed 
and polished. The women laughed and joked over their 
work, feeling perhaps that it was useless to rebel against 
the will of Providence. Father forgot to be penitent and 
became irritable. He said they were spoiling his furni- 
ture by exposing it to the elements, and he should speak 
to the lawyer about their conduct when that merry 
gentleman called again. Father would have been very 
grieved had he known that the old stuff was soon to be 
sold by auction for what it would fetch, while all the 
property which he had spent years in collecting would be 
gathered into a heap and burnt. He was in good spirits 
during those days because the kitchen was full of agree- 
able odours, and he kept lifting the lid of a pot, dipping 


About a Pagan Sacrifice 443 

a spoon or a flesh-hook inside, like a Jewish high priest, 
and smacking his lips greedily over the result. 

^ Although there was so much to be done, Ursula found 
time to run up and see John during the evening, and to 
inform him of the preparations they were making for her 
own bereavement. She was the worse for liquor, but for 
the sake of old times, and to show there was no ill-feel- 
ing, she gave him a little from the homely old bottle to 
cheer him up. John had been placed on a mattress so 
that he could not fall out on the floor, and a sad lamp 
was in the window as a sort of beacon for those who 
called to make inquiries. Bessie and Bill were not per- 
mitted to enter the house. They were ready to forgive 
and do all they could in the time of trouble, as they 
had good hearts and were themselves going up in the 
world, but Ursula reviled them and would have been 
violent had they insisted upon seeing the patient. 

“ Aw John, how be going on?^’ she asked amiably. 

“ I be going home fast,” muttered the man, in his thick 
voice. “The taties bain’t tilled neither.” 

“ Where be ye going then?” Ursula stammered. “ Yew 
be got like old Uncle now a-telling of home.” 

“ Five minutes after I be gone I’ll be up over a-look- 
ing down on ye,” said poor John prophetically, although 
he had always scoffed at such a doctrine until then. 

“ Not yew,” cried Ursula, with an alcoholic laugh. 
“ Yew’ll be down under looking up.” 

John groaned and tried to scratch his painful head, but 
his fingers were as limp as lambs’ tails. “ What be yew 
agwaine to du when I be gone?” he muttered. 

“ Aw, don’t ye worry about I,” said Ursula cheerfully. 
She thought she was performing her duty and making 
John happy. “ Soon as us ha’ put yew away, I be going 
to Plymouth. Mr. Odyorne ha’ wrote that the house be 
ready, and he’ll teach me the trade. He’ll come and tak’ 
me away hisself and see me into the place comfortable. 
Tull ye what ’tis, John,” she hiccuped, “ the gentleman 
be fair sot on me.” 

“ Don’t ye trust ’en,” said John. Even then he couldn’t 
bear the idea of Wheal Dream going out of the family. 

“ Shut your noise,” said Ursula pleasantly. “ Aw, if 
that bain’t the beef burning. ’Tis a proper bit o’ beef tu. ” 


Heather 


444 

Then she blundered down-stairs and dragged Father 
away from the fire, where he was prowling about among 
the pots tasting and defiling everything. 

“ I’ll be along presently,” said the big lady, as she 
adjusted a bonnet like a rick-cover. ” Us wull mak’ a 
drink o’ something hot, and tell to John, and sing to ’en 
a bit to keep his heart up. They gets a bit dull like when 
they’m going. Four o’ clock in the morning be the time 
’em goes usual. ’Tis an awkward time, my dear, but 
there, us has to humour them. The parlour be looking 
fine, but yew’m cruel short o’ chairs. Yew can ha’ some 
of mine if yew likes.” 

” The funeral wun’t cost nothing hardly,” said Ursula, 
with exultation. 

” Aw, my dear, yew’m a lucky woman. I ha’ spent 
pounds and pounds,” said the fat lady. 

John, the mere boy as the old folk regarded him, was 
to win the prize, the beautiful coffin presented by the 
wheelwright, and the immortality which was likely to be 
conferred by the grave near the porch; not the sort of 
immortality which his old father had referred to, but one 
which it was easier to appreciate. Willum Brokenbrow 
had been of all parishioners the most miserable, and had 
indeed attempted to take to his bed prostrated with grief, 
but the weather was so fine and he was feeling lusty. 
There was nothing for it but to be resigned, like Father, 
who had been a very lukewarm candidate since the almost 
fatal illness which had been induced by his efforts to 
subdue the bramble. Probably Brokenbrow had much the 
same sort of idea for all his loud boastings. Spring was 
coming on, there was a tender feeling in the wind. He 
could not have the grave, but he might obtain the next 
best thing. So he trimmed his whiskers, put on his best 
clothes, collected some primroses and adorned his coat 
with them. Then he went forth to visit Dame Broken- 
bone. The old lady was sitting in the usual corner, 
watching the usual pot and engaged upon the usual 
knitting. 

‘‘ How be ye, Loveday?” cried Willum, with juvenile 
and neighbourly grimaces. 

” I be purty fine, Willum. And how be yew?” 

” I be surprising. I du seem to get younger every year. 


About a Pagan Sacrifice 445 

I be as lusty as the young unicorns what the palmist tells 
about. Be your cold gone, Loveday?” 

“ Wull, purty nearly, though I bain’t getting out in 
the wind, but I be agwaine to chapel Sunday, if the 
Lord wills.” 

“ I be agwaine anyhow,” said Willum. ” Us wull walk 
after,” he added, with the manner of one haunting spirit 
addressing another. 

” Where would us walk to?” asked the dame, gazing 
at the primroses and the best apparel. It was the tender 
time of the year, and after all they were not ninety yet, 
and all people are entitled to as much fun as life can 
give them. 

'“Us might walk to Wheal Dream and back,” said 
Willum. 

” ’Tis cold out there along. 'Twould be best to bide 
in the lanes,” said the dame. 

” Have ye heard the cuckoo, Loveday?” asked Willum, 
with great anxiety. 

‘‘ No, Willum, I ain’t heard ’en. ” 

” Nor me neither. But I seed a yaller butterfly.” 

” Wull there,” said the dame, with much interest. 
” They’ll tull of it in the newspapers.” 

“ I wur thinking,” said Willum profoundly, ” that 
there be gwaine to be Easter.” 

The old lady admitted that the festival was not likely 
to be omitted from the calendar that year. 

” There be a Monday after Easter,” explained Willum; 
and the dame answered, it was probable. 

” There be a taking and a giving in marriage about 
then,” said Willum. 

” So there be,” said Loveday, as if such a thought 
had never occurred to her before. 

” ’Tis a fair day tu,” said Willum, warming into 
enthusiasm. ” Us might go abroad and dance a turn. 
Like two yaller butterflies,” he added, which was not 
a happy comparison, but it pleased the dame. She 
laughed a good deal but said very little. It was the time 
when women don’t say much; but they make up for it 
afterwards. 

” I wur thinking,” said Willum again, “ that the grave 
be closed to us both, Loveday.” 


446 Heather 

“ I wouldn’t go so far as to say that exactly. Us be 
human, Willum. ” 

“What I means to tell is there be no admittance on 
business to the grave us craved vor. John Petherick ha’ 
took an unfair advantage of we, and parson ses he mun 
ha’ it and us mun bide out on’t. Us ha’ played fair and 
us ha’ lost, and what I ses is there be no use crying over 
lost chances, and as us can’t ha’ the grave why shouldn’t 
us get wed instead? One be as gude as t’other, I 
reckon. ’’ 

“ Wull there,’’ gasped the old woman, with an eye of 
distinct encouragement upon her grimacing suitor. “ Yew 
du get to put things almost as plain as minister, Willum. 
Fair takes my breath away, yew du. ’’ 

“ Monday after Easter be a gude day,’’ he suggested. 

“ Aw, I mind many a fair, and I mind dancing out on 
the common seventy year ago. I wur a maiden then, 
and a proper liddle May Queen tu, I reckon.’’ 

“ I minds yew,’’ said Willum. “ Us didn’t reckon us 
would get wed seventy year afterwards,’’ he chuckled. 

“ Who be saying us be agwaine to get wed?’’ said the 
dame sharply. 

“ I du,’’ said Willum stoutly. “ I ses to myself this 
morning, ‘I can’t ha’ the grave, so I’ll wed Loveday. ’ 
Us wull start life again, as ’twere. ’’ 

“ What would the volks say?’’ the dame suggested. 

“They’ll call we a proper pair o’ yaller butterflies,’* 
declared Willum, although he ought to have known better. 

“ I be afraid yew might get to use blasphemious words, 
Willum,’’ she said. 

“ I’ve abin and given up using they,’’ he answered 
cheerfully. “ I gave ’em up on Christmas, and agin on 
New Year, and I’ll give ’em up agin come Easter time.’’ 

This was not very reassuring, but it seemed to satisfy 
the old woman, who was quite prepared to be joined to 
Willum in holy matrimony, but knew it was not decent 
to accept at once. She confessed she had often thought 
about searching for her affinity, as it was lonesome sit- 
ting alone in the kitchen ; and if Willum would only bridle 
his tongue, and not show a decided preference for the 
bar-room and bad company, she thought it likely enough 
that a little trip to church, not to the nook beside the 


About a Pagan Sacrifice 447 

porch, but to the more homely altar, would not harm 
either of them. So they embraced in the little kitchen, 
and celebrated the occasion with something out of a 
bottle, and agreed that to commence their career in this 
manner was better on the whole than concluding it with 
a function which the entire neighbourhood would attend ; 
and then Brokenbrow trotted off at peace with the world 
again, and thought the kindest thing he could do would 
be to travel across to Wheal Dream and advise his old 
rival, Amos Chown, to secure some primroses in his coat, 
undergo a spring cleaning, and follow his most excellent 
example. 

Early the next morning, when there was a tender pink 
light upon all the moor, and the gentle wind was filled 
with the purest odours found upon earth, the smell of 
firs and peat and dewy heather, and the first sunbeams 
seemed to be creeping down the side of the cleave to drink 
of the river, poor ill-used John Petherick was evicted at 
last from Wheal Dream and went into the immortality 
which he could not think about. It was a trial of endur- 
ance for him to the end ; the women who watched him 
were not sober, and their songs became hilarious ; the 
window was shut tightly, and the atmosphere of the little 
room was horribly close, and filled with smoke and smuts 
from the lamp, the flame of which had been turned up 
too high. When the end came Ursula sobbed and 
shrieked, making the place hideous. It was not hypocrisy 
then, she couldn’t help it, though the noise meant nothing, 
for she had hated John and in her heart was glad to think 
she had got rid of him. 

“ Did ye see the face of ’en?” she howled, more terri- 
fied than anything else. “ How he did grin and grind 
his old teeth. Aw, my dear, did ye ever see a man go 
so hard? He wur a bad ’un, and knawed he warn’t going 
to no gude place. Vull o’ sin he wur from the time us 
wur wed. I ses thank God,” muttered Ursula piously, 
” that he’m took to his rest. He wun’t thump me on the 
back no more.” 

There were disgraceful scenes in the little house be- 
tween that morning and the day of the funeral. Ursula 
spent most of the money that was left on liquor for herself 
and guests; she was about to depart, and she intended 


Heather 


448 

to leave a memory of her hospitality and a big reputation 
for having put her husband away in a thoroughly riotous 
and drunken fashion; she and John had swilled their 
souls and bodies into perdition, and now the memory of 
both was to be drowned in wine and brandy ; nothing 
else could satisfy Ursula; she was going one better than 
anybody had ever gone before. Ruined people can afford 
to be reckless, and will lift their glass to the cry, “ The 
devil. God bless him.” It was a dark, horrible religion 
that was practised on the side of the lovely little gorge 
where the Stannary road wound its way along like a shelf 
upon brackets. Perhaps savages had defiled Wheal 
Dream in the distant past with their offerings ; and now 
the last of the savage race was dirtying the place for 
the last time before the fire came to burn the rotten build- 
ings and purify the hole which the Pethericks had grubbed 
for themselves, and make it sweet for a new and cleaner 
generation. The last savage sacrifice of those who had 
ventured to break open the ark and scatter the law abroad 
like dung upon the land was being held. They were 
ugly scenes, and it is not well to stand before those 
windows. The tumbledown house, where all that re- 
mained of John, last of the Pethericks, was lying silent, 
became during those filthy days a drinking-hell and a 
brothel for any man who liked to enter. Even Father 
wondered how Ursula could be so rude. 

It was a great funeral. People talk about it still. 
Commoners came from all parts with their wives and 
little ones, and the village street suggested a revel. This 
was not because John was well-known and popular, but 
simply because the competition for the grave beside the 
porch had been talked about from west to east. A 
special effort was required of Ursula, as she was chief 
mourner, and so many eyes were upon her; and she rose 
to the occasion. Smothered in black raiment, she stood 
sobbing wildly by the grave, prevented from falling in 
by the stout widow, who held a little heap of heavily- 
edged and well-ironed handkerchiefs and handed them 
over one by one as they were required. The whole thing 
had been rehearsed beforehand. It was Ursula’s dramatic 
duty to use up all those handkerchiefs, and the miserable 
humbug did so, soaking the lot with her maudlin mess. 


About a Pagan Sacrifice 449 

The recession from the churchyard was something- of 
a triumph for her, although it was the last time she would 
ever loom in the public eye, except as a brawling street- 
walker in the cheapest and commonest labouring quarters 
of Plymouth; and at every other step she howled — 

“ They can’t say I ain’t put poor dear John away 
respectable;” and at the gate, where several, who knew 
nothing about her and mistook her acting for real emotion, 
tried to say something consoling, she lifted up her voice 
and sobbed contentedly, ” Aw, ’tis a real blessing to 
think us alius lived together so comfortable.” 

The last scene, and the saddest, was the feast, the 
only gratifying feature of which was its failure. The 
first stage was decent, the guests ate and drank and 
were pleasantly neighbourly, although they were amazed 
at the profusion of everything ; but there was to be 
neither speech nor song. Gregory Breakback had come 
for the singing, and Ada Mills was at his side; they 
looked well suited to each other and happy, but neither 
of them touched the strange fiery liquors on the table. 
Farmer Tom Moorshed had come with a little speech, 
though it was probable that when the time came for him 
to deliver it he would be too fuddled to know what he 
was expected to say, and would mumble something about 
long life to the bride and bridegroom ; but he was not to 
be called upon, for when Ursula appeared at the table 
she was shouting, calling herself a young woman and a 
free woman, and in a short time she was mad drunk, 
throwing things about, and challenging any woman 
present to step out and fight her. They tried to restrain 
her, but opposition made her worse. She was a free 
woman, and she had a fine bit of flesh on her and good 
clothes too, and if the company didn’t believe they could 
come and see for themselves. 

“ Bide quiet, woman,” went up voices from all over 
the room. ” It bain’t vitty. It be owdacious. Yew ha’ 
just put away your man, woman.” 

Ursula shrieked at them all. If this was not liberty she 
did not know what was. Gregory was near her and she 
tumbled upon himi, slobbered over him reeking of alcohol 
and sweat, and kissed him savagely. It was the first 
kiss he had ever received from a woman, and it was a 
29 


Heather 


450 


strange one. It harmed him. He went white, hurled 
her off, and she struck the wall with a thud. The stout 
widow caught her, pulled her away, tried to force her 
into the chair, but Ursula called her names which no 
woman could endure to hear, slapped her face with all 
her strength, causing her to bite her lip and bleed. There 
was a general movement among the guests, and some of 
them began to go. The widow reeled to the door, crying 
with pain and anger — 

“ She’m mad. The devil be in she. I ses a curse be 
on this house and on all who bides here.” 

Ursula was yelling. She clambered upon the table, 
fell among the meat and drink, got to her feet, pulled 
her clothes up, and danced, a shocking and shameless 
sight in the pure sunshine. Only old Father laughed, 
because he was used to Ursula, and he thought she was 
being funny; but the guests were making for the door. 
They had done with Ursula; none of them would attempt 
to help her or stand up for her again. Outside the wind 
was blowing sweetly, and the light was tracing all manner 
of coloured pictures down the side of the moor. The 
contrast was overwhelming. 

Gregory was on his feet, drawn up to his full height, 
holding Ada by the arm with a numbing pressure. 

“ If yew looks at that dancing doxy I’ll put my coat 
across your eyes,” he said. 

“ ’Tis nought but the drink in she,” Ada muttered.^ 

” If that bain’t the devil’s medicine, what be? Come 
out, I ses.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


ABOUT A SUNSET OF DREAMS 

Gregory and Ada walked along the Stannary road. It 
was going on towards evening, and the sun was falling 
behind the western tors, leaving the common in shadow. 
The long, curving mountain of Cawsand was golden still, 
its summit catching the later light and shining with a 
borrowed splendour when the lowlands were dark. Gre- 
gory had his eyes upon the tremendous sky-line, which 
seemed to divide the world of unpleasant stories from 
the land of stars, and the sight refreshed him, cooled his 
body; that and the turn of the road carried them well 
away from the sights and sounds of the home of the 
Pethericks, which had already passed into the hands of 
foreigners. 

Gregory wanted the wind. It was calm down there 
and it was calm above; but not the same calmness, for 
the spring wind up on the heights would be full of life 
and movement, like the spring water bubbling and foam- 
ing from the side of the moor. 

“ ’Tis a spoilt day,” he said. 

” Ees, I reckon. I wun’t be sorry to get off Dart- 
moor,” Ada answered. She walked slowly, lazily he 
thought, and she was growing fatter. That was the air 
and little exercise. Such women do not walk for the love 
of walking, but only when they have to. 

” Come on,” cried Gregory. “I’ll tak’ ye up over and 
show ye what I mean. Come on, Ada, us wull stand to 
the top and look into the sun, and yew’ll crave to bide 
here along till the end o’ the world.” 

” I couldn’t never climb up there,” said Ada. 

Neither could she understand what he meant. She 
never could. His language and his mind were far above 

451 


452 


Heather 


her, but she liked to hear him talking. He seemed so 
learned ; he looked so strong and clean ; there was no 
foul language ever found in his mouth, and no smell of 
liquor on his clothes. He was a man of earth, with the 
strange, wild stories of the earth clinging to him, making 
him smell wild and sweet, like the roots of a tree which 
the wind has torn up. He seemed to represent the spirit 
of the upland, to be the father of those invisible things 
which move in the woods and across the marshes and 
along the mountain top; things which silent men know 
are there, because they can smell their bodies and hear 
them rustling ; but Ada did not express her thoughts in 
that way. He was only a man to her, but wonderful, 
because he talked better than other men. 

“ ril tak’ ye along,” he said. “Yew ha’ nought to du 
but hold my arm and let your feet go, and I’ll bring ye 
up over to the top.” 

So she put her hand upon his arm and trusted in him, 
wondering again how old he was, but not guessing the 
truth. They descended, crossed the river, followed the 
pony track which wound upward between the blocks of 
granite, and ascended towards the first gigantic shoulder. 
Ada was soon panting. She couldn’t understand doing 
this sort of thing for pleasure. It seemed madness to be 
climbing over rough ground when they might have been 
walking along a smooth lane. What was the use of 
going higher only to come down again? If it was only 
to feel a different and a stronger wind, to be further from 
the world and nearer the sky, to look down upon the 
green and red map of the western land, and to see lights 
breaking out between sea and sea, it was surely nothing 
but a waste of time. Then it was dirty ; there was the 
sparkle of bog-water higher up, and clumps of scarlet 
moss like tropical flowers, and quaking grass of a sickly 
green. She was only spoiling her boots, and she was 
poor and couldn’t afford it. Gregory Breakback was a 
man of strange ideas. 

“ Dost see it?” he shouted, with a tremendous laugh. 

“ See what?” she asked, almost crossly. 

“The wind.” 

“ Wull, I feels it. No one can’t see the old stuff.” 

“ I sees ’en,” said Gregory. “ I can see ’en moving 


About a Sunset of Dreams 453 

miles away and rushingf to me. Us mun go round a bit 
to keep clear o’ the stables.” 

He referred to the bog’s which, as many a poor pony 
had discovered to its cost, were stables with no doors of 
exit. There was no track, but the ascent became easy, 
although dwarf furze and tangled heather caught their 
feet, and presently they entered a wilderness of clatters, 
slabs of stone, which apparently had been cast there at 
the beginning of the world and never subsequently re- 
moved. The village had vanished beneath the giant’s 
shoulder, and with it every echo of the world below; 
panorama rose behind parorama, a lot of scarred tors 
and rough ranges, and the wind was lord of all. It was 
cold on the great bare slopes, where was neither bush nor 
shrub to bear off any weather at all, and if it had come 
on to hail Ada would have screamed for mercy to the 
pitiless clouds, while Gregory would have grinned and 
borne it. 

” Ain’t us nearly up?” she panted. 

“ Us wun’t be long,” he answered. He wasn’t gasp- 
ing; his breath came as easily as if he had been sitting 
by the door of Moor Gate, gazing across his wonderland. 
The cairn at the top looked near, but at the end of another 
ten minutes it appeared just the same distance away; 
there was an enchantment to that view : and when the 
summit did come it was suddenly, like most of the good 
things of life. 

“ There be an old tomb down yonder. Us wull go and 
sot on ’en,” said Gregory. 

” ’Twull be cruel cold,” said Ada. 

“ ’Tis a bit more lew there.” 

They reached the old stone chest, which was moist and 
mossy, but Gregory did not heed that, and when Ada 
objected, having her best dress on, he pulled off his coat 
and spread it for her to sit on. He did not mind the 
wind, which was chilly up there. It made him warm. 
His blooT and bones fed upon it, and when it increased 
he became stronger too. He seated himself beside her, 
on the edge of the grave, which had ceased to be one for 
so long as to have lost all dreary associations. He glanced 
at Ada; she was red and palpitating, and her yellow hair 
was in great disorder; her flesh was good, plump to the 


Heather 


454 

eye, soft to the touch ; her limbs were large and round. 
Had he reached in old age, as years go, the parting of the 
ways? It seemed to Gregory that the god of the moun- 
tain was in a kindly mood, and the rugged mass was 
softening towards him. Perhaps it was nothing but the 
new heather springing up so strongly among the black 
and white stones — nothing but the change and fragrance 
of the spring — but Gregory believed that the form of the 
mountain had changed too. It was no longer an over- 
whelming mass stifling with its bulk; its menace had 
become a smile, it was a gentle thing, an airy and fragile 
presence, a deity of coloured cloud and flowers. 

Then he thought of his home. George’s Christmas gift 
had helped him to do wonders. The canary had been 
singing to some purpose, and with each one of its twenty 
silvery songs Gregory had added some true domestic 
touch. His hands were two miracles, and raw material 
was cheap. The place was furnished now; two large 
rooms were comfortable and good enough ; a woman 
might be satisfied with them, and when she bent over the 
fire preparing the evening meal perhaps she would smile. 
The cage could be taken down, having fulfilled its pur- 
pose, and a lamp could hang in its place to shine like an 
eye of love across the moor. The iron bar would lean 
against the wall, as a symbol of strength and of labour, 
old Ben would sprawl beside the broken hearthstone, and 
he himself would work — but not for a master. His pride 
would remain, and a tyrant’s command would still make 
him mad to break a tyrant’s back. 

“ What ha’ ye brought I up here vor?” asked Ada. 

“ To look out over,” he answered. 

‘‘I’d sooner be avore the fire wi’ my sewing. ’Tis a 
proper lonely old place.” 

‘‘ Yew’ll want to be coming up here again?” he sug- 
gested. 

‘‘Not me. I be agwaine off Dartmoor soon as I gets 
the chance.” 

‘‘ Where be going?” 

“ Anywhere, so long as ’tis a town. I’ve had enough 
o’ the mucky country, and I bain’t wanted to home. A 
woman can’t du nought here along. ’Tis proper in a 
town, wi’ streets to walk on, and volks passing, and 


About a Sunset of Dreams 455 

plenty o’ lights. There be something to see in a 
town. ” 

“ Bain’t there nought to see here neither?” 

“ Sheep and ponies, and watter everywhere. A woman 
can’t move abroad wi’out getting her clothes mucky, and 
’tis cruel lonesome.” 

“ Aw ’tis, when yew’m alone.” 

“ So I craves to get out on’t,” she said. 

“ Yew’m handy, Ada?” 

” Ees, I can cook and mind a house, and I be useful 
wi’ my needle and makes aU my own clothes.” 

“ Would ye mak’ a man’s clothes tu?” 

” I reckon I could, if I had an old suit to go by.” 

” Yew’d bide on Dartmoor if yew had a home?” 

” Aw, ’twould be different then. A woman craves a 
home. More than a man du, I reckon. Her likes a fire- 
side of her own.” 

” And a man of her own?” 

‘ ‘ Wull, her du, and ’tis no use saying anything different. ’ ’ 

The sun had gone away, but the top of the mountain 
was clinging to the light. The wind was increasing, as 
it does after sunset; it seemed to Gregory that the god 
of the mountain was dancing in his hall. He placed his 
hands upon his knees and sighed. Had the sun gone 
down upon his loneliness? Ada was not whiter than 
the lily, nor had the fragrance of the rose settled upon 
her; she had not received the baptism of beauty; she 
did not partake of the mystery of sunset dreams : but 
there she was, a fat contented piece of woman-flesh, 
wanting a home and a man to give it her. 

” Us ha’ walked together, Ada.” 

” Ees, us ha’ walked a plenty.” 

” And telled together.” 

” Ees,” she said softly. 

“I be a man. I be strong,” he cried. ” I be Dem- 
shur tu, and they ses when a Demshur man throws a bit 
o’ wood into the sea it turns into a fighting ship. I could 
break the backs o’ they liddle men in towns.” 

“I reckon yew could.” She was understanding him 
now he was talking sense; the idea of matrimony is 
always sensible to a woman; and then he was off again 
in parables. 


Heather 


456 

“ There wur a man and he loved a woman, but had 
nought to give she, vor all he had wur a pigeon wi’ a 
broken wing. So he gave she that, and her was satisfied, 
’cause her knew ’twas all he had.” 

” What du ye mean?” said Ada. 

“ Wull, my dear, her wur a gude woman, ’cause her 
didn’t want more than what the man had to give; and 
he gave she all he had, ’though it warn’t worth much. 
But ’tis a true story, vor he’m wrote down on my 
parchment. ” 

They became silent again, Ada, who was in her finery 
for the funeral festival which had been brought to nought, 
shivered and wanted to get down, though she also desired 
to hear what he had to say; while Gregory, warm in his 
sleeved waistcoat, felt only the call of Nature telling him 
it was mating-time then or never at all. He knew that 
he and Ada had nothing in common, except, perhaps, love 
for the home, which on his side would last, but on hers 
might die quickly when she discovered what a poor one 
it was, amid what solitude, set up in what wind. Would 
happiness endure between them, or would Ada grow in 
time to hate husband and home alike, imitate Ursula and 
seek from the bottle those pleasures which he could not 
give? Could they be happy looking different ways; he 
across the moor, she towards the gaslights of town life? 
Gregory could not answer. All he knew was that this 
was his last chance; the god of the mountain was pro- 
pitious and offering him all that he deserved or could 
hope to win. He was a lowly creature, and his partner 
must be lowly too. He must take all he could get and 
be thankful. But would love be the thing he thought it 
was when Ada came to Moor Gate, she who had borrowed 
nothing from dreamland? The very attraction of love 
consists in the fact that real life has nothing to do with 
it. Would Ada help to maintain that idea? Or would 
she scold and talk scandal of the neighbours ? Such 
questions were endless. The wind was getting higher 
and the noise from the subterranean hall of the god of the 
mountain increased. He seemed to have invited a few 
divine friends to come and spend a merry evening with 
him. They were singing a song of war; not a song of 
love. 


About a Sunset of Dreams 457 

“ Us ha’ walked since last summer, Ada.” 

“ Ees, us ha’ been some proper walks,” she answered. 

He tried to think what she had said during those walks. 
He could not recall a single remark worth remembering; 
but she was a woman, she must have the divine spark, 
and he might find it and nurse it into flame. 

” Have ye ever been asked, Ada?” 

” Not proper,” she said, beginning to be nervous. 

” I ask ye now,” said Gregory loudly. 

Ada put down her head and wriggled, trying not to 
laugh, but she had to giggle, for she could not help being 
tickled at the proposal. Her parents had called her a 
proper old maid, and often taunted her with her failure to 
capture a man, for she was forty, and when a woman is 
not settled by then she gets laughed at. Ada was pleased, 
and the fat on her body shook with satisfaction. Gregory 
was a fine man, sornething big to show her parents, and 
she could clap her hands in their faces and call them lying 
prophets. 

” How old be ye, please, Mr. Breakback?” she asked, 
nudging him archly. 

Gregory did not answer; the matter of his age could 
wait. All he said was, “ I ha’ a warm heart and a poor 
home, but I owes nought. Don’t tak’ me, woman, if yew 
craves finery. I ha’ nought to give save company and 
my old place up over on Moor Gate. ’ ’ 

“ I knaws yew bain’t rich,” she said. ” I likes yew, 
Mr. Breakback. Yew ha’ been gude to me.” 

” Yew’ll ha’ me then?” 

” I wull, and thankye kindly.” 

“ I can’t give ye town life. I can’t give streets and 
shops. ’Twull be homely up over and that be all. ” 

” Us can’t get all us craves vor,” said Ada resignedly. 
” I bain’t a young maiden. I ha’ known what ’tis to live 
careful. ” 

” Us wull ha’ to live careful.” 

” Wull, I’ll du my best,” she promised. 

“Yew wun’t get tired on’t? Yew’ll bide as yew be 
now?” 

“ I’ll try, but I hopes yew wun’t tell queer same as 
yew ha’ been a-doing, vor I can’t onderstand when yew 
tells like that.” 


458 Heather 

“ I can’t tell no other way. ’Tis the life I ha’ led,” he 
said gloomily. 

Somehow there was not much warmth between them, 
and Ada was perhaps more conscious of it than he was. 

” Bain’t yew agwaine to give me one liddle kiss?” she 
asked rather impatiently. 

” Bide a bit,” said Gregory. ” There be a question I 
ha’ to ask ye. It be a question they alius asked at the 
beginning of the world, but they don’t now, vor volks 
be careless got. Some men don’t care what ’em weds, 
but I care. I ha’ lived lonely all my life, and I ha’ lived 
clean, and I can look out from my door and swear I be 
as clean in my body as the wind what brought me here 
along. Now, woman, avore us be promised. I’ll ask ye 
the question.” 

” Yew’m telling queer again. I don’t onderstand ye,” 
she grumbled. 

” Wull, woman, ’tis a fair question vor a man to ask, 
and no maid need feel shame to answer. And now I ask 
yew. I, Gregory, ask yew, Ada, as ’em asked at the 
beginning o’ the world, if yew wull be my woman in pure 
virginity?” 

Ada started, shuddered, then flushed, half in anger, half 
in shame. The question was clear enough, and she could 
not pretend it was past her comprehension. 

” It bain’t right to ask such a thing,” she stammered. 

” Right or wrong, I ask ye. I wants your answer,” he 
said loudly. 

” I can’t give ’en. Yew’m insulting me,” she cried. 
Then she put her face into her hands and cried. 

“No, woman. I’d break my back avore I insulted ye. 
Answer yes or no in pure virginity, and let’s ha’ the end 
on’t.” 

” I can’t. I can’t,” she sobbed. 

” Be that the way yew ha’ gone?” he shouted. 

” Give over,” she sobbed. ” What harm ha’ I done? 
I bain’t better nor worse than others. I ha’ been a young 
maid and lively, and I bain’t ashamed on’t neither,” she 
said defiantly. 

Gregory had left the old stone-chest, and when she rose 
too he began to pull his coat on, looking downwards ; and 
now there were devils dancing in the hall of the mountain. 


About a Sunset of Dreams 459 

“ Come along down. ’Tis time us wur home, and ’tis 
getting dark;” and so it was, for him and for her as well 
as for the sky. 

“ I bain’t a bad woman,” she cried. 

“ I bain’t sot over ye to be a judge. I ha’ lived clean, 
and all I asks of my woman be the like; and yew ha’ let 
the lady in ye out on hire.” 

“ Yew’m a liar,” she cried hotly. 

“ I don’t want ye, woman. I’ll bide alone.” 

“ I ha’ been the same as others.” 

“And I be a man and proud on’t. I’ll tak’ my body 
out o’ the world as clean as he come in.” 

They said no more as they descended the mountain, 
walking apart, Ada sobbing all the way. At the foot 
they parted with a cold “good-night,” and the moor 
between them parted too, not for a night but for ever. 
There was no getting across that space which the woman’s 
life, the ordinary careless life, had made between them. 
Gregory went on towards Moor Gate; and nobody heard 
him singing as he went. 

The voices were there the same as usual, the voices of 
those things of Nature among which he had always lived, 
and they called him as he went along, but he did not hear 
all of them ; the night birds called and the heather called, 
and the rugged tors and dashing rivers, and the wind, 
clouds and uttermost depths of sky and space, and all the 
wonderful sprinkle of stars called as he went to his lonely 
home. “You are a man, Gregory Breakback;” but he 
did not hear that. “ You are a proud man, Gregory 
Breakback;” but he did not hear that. “You are an old 
man, Gregory Breakback;” and that he heard. 

So he came home to Moor Gate, to the rooms he had 
furnished with his wonderful hands, to the broken hearth- 
stone where no fire glowed and where no figure would 
ever stoop, and to the table where no food was prepared ; 
and faithful Ben flopped down at his feet and gave him 
love. He took the chair, which he had made himself for 
a woman to sit on, placed it outside the door, seated him- 
self and looked out. He had failed, and it was his own 
fault; his pride had stood in the way at every turn; he 
had not humbled himself and done his best : and there- 
fore he got the hammer on his head, not the wreath and 


Heather 


460 

happiness. He had tried to teach George what the artist 
could have taught him. A man may be a saint, and yet 
he fails if he cannot break and bend his back. 

And for the future what was there? The voices and 
nothing else; the message and the company of wind and 
space; this playing at immortality. Dreamland was at 
his door pushing its golden key into his strong, hard 
hand, and the story of the universe was before him in 
soft outlines with all the illusion of the past and glamour 
of time ahead. The heavy mists over the marshes, the 
painted clouds around the tors, the mysterious haze of 
twilight, the wonder of the moon, the sun wallowing in 
his bloody death every fine evening — these would be the 
fellows who would bear him company; and as for the 
voices, there would be the whispers of St. Michael’s Wood, 
the god-like tones of the mountains, the rattling of rocks, 
the rush and shout of waters ; and, greater than these, 
the pathetic cry of the spirit-forms, made by swaling- 
fires and peat-smoke and moon-shadows around the ruin, 
gathering there in the loneliness of night, and piping with 
the borrowed and plaintive sweetness of the solitary 
bird — 

“ Be outside your door every evening, Gregory Break- 
back, and look out over, waiting and watching for the 
reward of life which the gods will send you. Watch our 
shadows creeping from the mists on the river over the 
furze-bushes and upward to the heather which clings to 
the top of the hill ; and when the sky is white with moon- 
shine keep your eyes on that dark, quivering line, made 
by the heather as it brushes the moonlight, and then you 
shall see ...” 

But at that point the voices failed and could tell no 
more. It was the blurring of the line between life and 
dreamland. What could he see but the sombre back- 
ground of reality? This knocking at the gate of illusion 
would have no end, but there would be always a kind of 
pleasure in the effort; and the story of existence derived 
therefrom would be the splendid old tale of outdoor life, 
the life of the wood with its charming secrets, the life of 
the moor with its scent of brown peat and the fresh, clean 
dew upon everything, the life of health and strength, with 
sufficient patience added to keep the mind free from low 


About a Sunset of Dreams 461 

and horrible delusions. It was the story which had no 
end, for death itself, perhaps, would only supply just that 
one thing necessary to make the dream real. It was the 
story of the triumph of mind over body. 

It was dark. Gregory had gone inside and the door of 
the little ruin was closed. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


ABOUT A TWILIGHT OF GOLD 

Uncle Gifford was alive and blossoming as a man 
of business. He was letting lodgings, and getting plenty 
of company at last. Two gentlemen shared his cottage, 
distinguished folk, who didn’t object to a stone floor 
and only one room in which to eat and work and have 
their being. The firm of Bubo and Brunacombe had 
moved across the gorge, and the quaint metal sign of 
the one-legged owl swung above Uncle’s doorway in the 
little court, where water was always splashing and ferns 
were generally green. The old gentleman had not adver- 
tised for lodgers; they had thrust themselves upon him, 
explaining they were homeless, they must live and work 
somewhere, and they refused to depart from the precincts 
of Wheal Dream. Uncle was penniless after Jimmy 
departed with his money-box, and George easily convinced 
him that it would be foolish and wrong to die of starva- 
tion, and if he and Bubo came into residence Uncle could 
live for nothing, be well looked after, and if at any time 
he took it into his head to pass into life everlasting, why 
he could do so in peace and comfort, with George on 
one side of the bed, Bessie on the other. Bill at the foot, 
and at the head Bubo delivering an oration upon all the 
avuncular virtues. 

This was a very good thing for old Gifford, and when 
George presented him with a bright new money-box 
having a few shillings and coppers inside, which he could 
rattle about and play with as he lay in bed, his old heart 
overflowed with happiness. Apparently he was not going 
to die, although hopelessly paralysed ; the doctor thought 
he might go on for some time, though he would never 
leave his room again ; but George brightened up the walls 

462 


About a Twilight of Gold 463 

with a few pictures, brought flowers into the place, taught 
the old man the virtues of an open window and plenty 
of air and sunshine ; and Uncle sprawled on his back, was 
delighted with everything, and his shadow grew no less. 
He read his Bible and sang his hymns every night and 
morning; and prayed aloud for the wonderful gentleman 
who had all the arts of the magicians and could create 
comfort in a divine-like way. George heard his virtues 
going up to heaven every night, and it made him chuckle ; 
but Bubo was offended. The senior partner’s morality 
was on the wane, he was exceedingly sulky during those 
pleasant summer days, and had fallen into Willum 
Brokenbrow’s deplorable habit of using “ blasphemious 
words.” Willum was a married man again by then, and 
had turned his mind entirely from joyous thoughts of 
sepulture. Bubo was not pleased at being moved from 
the Wheal House to the cottage, where there was not 
nearly enough room for mouse-coursing; besides, it looked 
too much like coming down in the world ; and was he not 
Lord Mayor of Wheal Dream, with a little gold chain 
of office round his neck, and senior partner of one of the 
most celebrated art firms in the world? 

“ I told you we were going to be turned out of house 
and home,” George said, laughing and rubbing his hands 
together. ” I was a true prophet, ancient and mayor- 
like Bubo. We have come down to a cottage, to one 
room and a cupboard, but it isn’t poverty, your worship. 
It’s wealth, success; poverty is a fine thing when you 
can afford to play at it. Here’s the doctor. Sit up 
straight and look sociable. Bubo, or I’ll order you two 
blue pills as big as cannon-balls.” 

George admitted the doctor and put him in a chair. 
He wanted to have a serious talk, for there were plenty 
of clouds about, depressing him often, and until they were 
cleared away he wouldn’t be really happy. He closed 
the door, set himself in the darkest corner, and began 
to ask questions, all about Winnie; there was nothing in 
the world to ask questions about except Winnie; there 
could never be anything of the slightest importance under 
the firmament of heaven except that one living thing 
which still moved about the earth. 

” So you want to marry her, Brunacombe?” 


Heather 


464 

“ Of course I do. I always wanted her, but I was a 
poor, struggling devil in those days.” 

” Then that man Halfacre is dead?” 

“ Buried, forgotten, and gone for ever,” cried George 
cheerfully. He had heard nothing whatever and was 
lying, but he wasn’t going to allow the poor wretch to 
live. Winnie’s name was not to be linked with his any 
longer, she was not to suffer any more shame or sorrow 
through him, she was to be free; so George killed him 
with his tongue. He knew he couldn’t marry Winnie; 
but of what account was that so long as she was his, 
living in his home, protected and maintained by him ; 
when he could see her and hear her speak, and look 
across at the window of her room and know she was 
safe and comfortable? Men and women cannot have 
everything; and George was getting quite as much as he 
deserved. 

“ I knew he wouldn’t last. Everything in him was 
weak. He was a mass of diseased consciousness — a 
queer brute,” said the doctor. 

“ We have done with Halfacre. At least I hope so,” 
George muttered. “ I want to hear the worst about some 
one else.” 

“ She’s a pretty girl. She always does what she’s told. 
If ever a girl deserved to get well she does. She has 
done more for herself than any one I have ever known. 
She is a marvel. It’s a wonder she didn’t die as you 
were bringing her up from Cornwall.” 

” We wouldn’t let her,” said George. ” She kept on 
saying, ‘ I won’t die. I’ll promise you to get well.’ Is 
she keeping her promise?” 

” So far as I can judge she is defying medical opinion 
exactly as she did before. If she had behaved properly 
she would have been dead long ago,” said the doctor 
laughing. “You know what happened the first time she 
came here. On this occasion she was far worse, and if 
I hadn’t known her I should have said it was impossible 
she could live a month.” 

“ She has done it,” cried George triumphantly. 

“ She is repeating her past performance. Her cough 
has practically ceased, she has increased twelve pounds in 
weight, she has no temperature, and her strength is 


About a Twilight of Gold 465 

returning. She does all she can for herself and seems 
very happy — both great things.” 

” She will soon be about again,” cried George, making 
faces at sulky Bubo. ” She will be going down to St. 
Michael’s Ford.” 

” Not for another month or two. Don’t be too 
sanguine, Brunacombe. ” 

‘‘ Why not? Why shouldn’t I be?” 

There is always the danger of a relapse, and there 
are so many other things; the disease might go into her 
throat, for instance.” 

” It won’t,” cried George. ” We won’t let it.” 

” Well, if she goes on as she is doing now ” 

” She will. We’ll see to it.” 

“Then she will get about again. But you must be 
very careful of her.” 

That was a ridiculous thing to say, and George almost 
jeered at it. As if Winnie wasn’t going to be wrapped up 
in cotton-wool all the days of her life, and not even per- 
mitted to go within a yard of any bramble lest she might 
get scratched. George had not asked the doctor in to 
talk such nonsense. 

“ If you are married it will be a case of separate rooms 
and all that sort of thing. You understand that?” 

“ I only ask one thing,” said George, “ and that is 
to see her walking about the moor and coming in hungry 
to eat a good dinner. Shall I have my wish?” 

“ I think you will. I feel almost sure you will. This 
girl is different from others. She seems able to extract 
from this air life-giving qualities which no one else is 
quite able to find. That is really the whole secret of her 
recovery. I have always compared her to a plant which 
will only grow in pure air and sunshine. She could never 
have lasted any time in a smoky place. Even the sea air 
was killing her. But on the top of Dartmoor she finds 
her own element.” 

George could say nothing just then; he was behind the 
doctor, blinking his eyes and shaking his fist furiously at 
Bubo, who was always disgusted by any signs of weak- 
ness. The junior partner had become a positive idiot 
since he had taken to shaving every day, and going in 
for many changes of raiment, and descending to wine and 

30 


Heather 


466 

women ; at least that is how Bubo summed up the whole 
matter, but then he was a philosopher, when he wasn’t 
replenishing his stomach, and therefore it was impossible 
for him to be patient with the follies of youth. 

The doctor patted George on the shoulder and made 
for the door; then looked back and said, “ I have sad 
news of some of my old patients. That poor fellow 
Gumm is dead. I heard from his wife only this morn- 
ing.” 

” Poor old Yorick,” George muttered. ” He used to 
make me laugh with his queer jokes. There was some- 
thing to admire in him if he could play the fool and 
keep up the spirits of others when he was dying.” 

‘‘ He would have lived and become healthy if he could 
have stopped up here. He had a wife, and had to go back 
and maintain her ; and a commercial traveller has a trying 
time.” The doctor hesitated, then added in almost a 
whisper, ” Miss Calladine is dead.” 

” What?” muttered George, with a shudder. 

” She was a strange girl. I liked her, but couldn’t 
understand her,” the doctor went on. ” I believe every 
one liked her, but she frightened them. I was afraid 
she would go off suddenly. There was not an atom of 
self-control in her. That night the dog was caught in 
a trap did for her — she has left all her money to that 
dog, by the way, that he may be petted and pampered 
for the rest of his life. A queer girl; but she was hand- 
some.” 

” Like an animal,” George murmured. 

” Yes, there wasn’t much womanliness about her. That 
face of hers ought to have attracted men, but it only 
frightened them. It’s a pity to see beauty spoilt and 
wasted — and upon a dog or two. It’s not good enough, 
Brunacombe. ” 

” Does she know?” said George, nodding his head to- 
wards his own house. 

‘‘Certainly not. You mustn’t tell her;” but George 
only muttered — 

‘‘ I don’t think she would care much.” 

After that he had to go up to the marshes, which was 
always his walk when he wanted to think, for its desola- 
tion suited every mood. Berenice was taken, and Winnie 


About a Twilight of Gold 467 

left ; the stiff growth had been snapped off, the clinging 
one lived on. Winnie and himself had weathered the 
storm merely by being patient, and all around them was 
the wreckage — the clown’s head of Gumm, the wild, 
fascinating eyes of Halfacre, the gracious white face of 
Leigh, the fine brown Berenice, to say nothing of such 
lesser storm-tossed refuse as the Pethericks. It was 
sad to look out after the storm, sad to think what might 
have been had there been nothing but calmi wind, sad 
even to succeed where so many fall. George was not a 
mystic, like Gregory ; there were no voices on the moor for 
him ; he was his own voice, and he declared conceitedly as 
he trotted along, “ You have worked hard, George, in 
poverty, hunger, and dirt, and I’ll be hanged if you don’t 
deserve a holiday and fine weather.” 

He entered his house most days, but only visited Winnie 
on Sundays, by special permission on one side and by 
invitation on the other. He did not frown and look severe 
any more, and Winnie always smiled at him straight in 
the eyes, and if there was a speck of dust on his coat 
she said, “ Come here,” flicked it off, and laughed, 
“That’s better.” They were natural enough; they 
called each other by their Christian names, and sometimes 
— usually when it was getting late on Sunday evening, 
which is a dangerous time^ — they became Dimples and 
Gee; but there was never anything worse — for she was 
another man’s wife, and George had no right to be in 
her bedroom — no kisses or any nonsense of that kind. 
There was just a handshake when Mrs. Shazell came in 
to tell George his time was up, for his watch always was 
slow on those evenings; and a “Good-bye till next Sun- 
day, George. Tell Bubo he’s not to give you too much 
work,” from her; and a “ Mind you are nice and plump 
by next weighing-day, Winnie,” from him. There was 
no need for anything else, as Winnie was not strong 
enough for demonstrations, and they had understood each 
other perfectly since that night when George had rescued 
her just in time from St. Piran’s Sands. 

That merry little gentleman, Mr. Odyorne, had been 
going to and fro, capturing pawns like a chess-queen, but 
at length found himself in a corner, wedged in between 
George and Uncle. He had overlooked Uncle in his 


Heather 


468 

scheme of appropriation, and his pretty words and amiable 
gambols didn’t go down with the artist, who, now that he 
was famous, began to assert himself. When Mr. Odyorne 
came to destroy the home of the Pethericks, Uncle’s 
cottage stood in the way, and when he proposed to buy 
that for a guinea or two, old Gifford defied him to touch a 
stick or stone, and George aided him, declaring that he 
himself was lord of Wheal Dream. It was no use Mr. 
Odyorne buttering Uncle in his best manner, calling him 
the most angelic old gentleman that had ever slipped out 
of heaven by mistake. Uncle only opened his big Bible 
and read lurid extracts about a lake of fire wherein 
usurers would flop about like exhausted goldfish. It was 
no use trying to oil George into an alliance with loving 
phrases and such expressions as “ Dear old boy,” and 
‘‘We gentlemen must stick together.” The artist replied 
he was going to see fair play. Mr. Odyorne was check- 
mated; he could do nothing until he possessed Gifford’s 
vineyard, except dismantle the home of the Pethericks, 
knock the roof off, and make it thoroughly hideous and 
uninhabitable, partly out of spite, but chiefly from a dread 
lest Ursula might return and summon the commoners to 
her aid. There was no fear of that; Ursula was already 
stranded, and going rotten with gin and lust; and as 
for poor old Father, he was safe in the workhouse, prob- 
ably far more comfortable than he had ever been in his 
life, being washed and scraped out of all recognition. 

‘‘ Look here,” said George, the next time the lawyer 
came along bumbling and honey-dropping in quest of the 
property; ‘‘you can’t get the whole of Wheal Dream, 
because you could never buy me out, but I can get it. 
I’ll buy the place off you.” 

He wanted it so that he could rebuild the home of the 
Pethericks as a cottage for Mrs. Shazell. She was a dear 
little lady, but she kept on forgetting that other parts of 
her body required exercise besides her tongue; and when 
certain things came to pass, and George was at home 
again, he wanted to hear only one voice, but as much of 
that as he could get. 

Mr. Odyorne agreed, called George a “ dear old sports- 
man,” and quoted a figure which might possibly have 
tempted the owners of the Tower of London. George 


About a Twilight of Gold 469 

told him to go away, cool his imagination, and write 
when he was serious; which Mr. Odyorne did, only his 
craving for guineas was also serious, and he argued that 
an artist who was making plenty of money wouldn’t be 
a man of business. But George had been a poor man 
too long not to know something about the value of 
money. The lawyer went on writing loving letters, always 
alluding in a tender manner to “ dear Mrs. Brunacombe,” 
knocking olf a few guineas every time, though it was 
pain and grief to him, until George had to decline to 
continue the matter. Then Mr. Odyorne sent in a most 
affectionate bill for the letters, which George paid to 
keep the little guinea-pig quiet, and there the incident 
ended ; and the home of the old Dartmoor family of 
Petherick stands in ruins to this day. 

When the heather came into flower Winnie was up and 
going little walks ; down to the wheal as she had done in 
former days, not sighing and sad, as then, but delightfully 
happy and able to feel herself mistress of all she surveyed ; 
along the road across the common, almost to the village; 
and a little way up the side of the moor. Still she was 
not satisfied; she longed for the big walks, and two in 
particular — the great peat marshes, where the wind and 
the stickles sang together, and the wood beyond the Ford 
between St. Michael’s oaks, to the green shelf above the 
waterfall. 

“ I’ll be patient a little longer, and then we shall be 
there,” she said to George, who was wasting those days 
teaching Winnie to walk, always horribly afraid she would 
hurt herself in some way, removing stones from the path 
in front and cutting off every bramble, especially Father’s 
old enemy, which had grown again. It was a wonder 
he didn’t order Bessie out to wash the old timbers and 
sandpaper the walls of the wheal. Winnie was not sup- 
posed to talk during those walks, but the dimples were 
not doomed to silence, neither were they; and sometimes 
she would make mouths and eyes and do marvellous things 
with her nose, trying to express what she might not 
say, and then she would get her fingers crushed, and — 
though it was not officially recognised — kissed, when she 
would insist upon being particularly distracting. She 
had to overlook these lapses from good behaviour, because 


Heather 


470 

she knew she deserved punishment, and perhaps she didn’t 
really mind much. How could she help getting well with 
the knowledge that calm wind was going to blow to the 
end of the story? 

Bill and Bessie did obeisance to Winnie as the “ little 
missis,” and made her laugh by alluding to her as the 
owner of the master and themselves ; but to Uncle she 
was the wonderful lady, and he occupied himself by 
searching out texts which were appropriate to her, and 
quoting them to George, who saw no reason to disagree. 
The state of Uncle’s mind had improved greatly now 
that he was no longer subjected to ill-treatment. He 
could lie on his back and rattle his new money-box, and 
hope that Jimmy was being a good boy and reading his 
Bible regularly. Uncle was always asking when the 
wonderful lady was coming to visit him, although he 
admitted that two marvellous personages in that small 
cottage would be rather overwhelming ; not to mention 
Bubo, who scrambled up the steep stairs nearly every 
night to perform his favourite tragedy of Othello under- 
neath Uncle’s bed. The old man was relieved when 
Bubo departed, for he was afraid of him ; he could not 
understand a wild bird in a state of domesticity, and he 
had a dim notion that the little owl was a sort of Chaldean 
and astrologer, of whom, he gathered, holy writ did not 
entirely approve. 

At last Winnie came, attended as usual, and commanded 
to pause on each stair before she ascended another; and 
when Uncle saw her there was no more breath left in 
him. He felt that if she had asked him for a penny out 
of the money-box he would not have refused. As she did 
no such thing, he opened his Bible before her and showed 
her the beautiful pictures; Adam and Eve in the garden 
apparently looking for their clothes ; the ark floating 
about in a large pond, with an elephant, not exactly in 
proportion with the vessel, sticking its head out of a 
port-hole ; the tower of Babel crumbling down like a 
suburban villa; and Lot’s wife just about to be chemically 
transformed into a useful table condiment. Uncle ex- 
plained that all the pictures had been prepared by divinely 
inspired artists, and were therefore accurate in every 
detail. He did not show Winnie the picture of Simon 


About a Twilight of Gold 471 

Peter being- unkind to Ananias, as he felt he hardly knew 
her well enough, and it might seem conceited if he pointed 
out how strongly the holy apostle resembled himself ; but 
he allowed her a glance at the plan of the New Jerusalem, 
which was where he was going some day, although he 
hastened to add he was in no hurry because the wonder- 
ful gentleman was so good to him, a.nd covered the walls 
of his bedroom with beautiful pictures, and fed him with 
delicacies which it was really not right for him to eat 
but only for those who lived in kings’ palaces. Bessie 
Chown was also a righteous person, and Uncle hoped she 
and Bill would in time occupy a cottage in the same 
heavenly street as himself. And then he thought it would 
be nice and homely if they said a prayer; and he lifted 
up his voice and made George and Winnie blush because 
of their virtues ; but unfortunately Bubo came scuttling in 
behaving blasphemously, and brawled to such a disgrace- 
ful extent that Uncle had to stop. 

“Yew’ll come and see me again?” he asked eagerly. 
“ And when I be going home wull ye hold my hand vor 
company? ’Twull seem more natural like when I opens 
my eyes and finds myself up over.” 

Winnie did not like such a question, though the com- 
pliment was a pretty one, but she promised. 

“ I think you have been a very good and patient man,” 
she said. 

“I ha’ been homely,” said Uncle. “ Me and neigh- 
bours never could get on, vor us wur different. I be 
happy now,” he added. “It be all quiet abroad, and I 
don’t get mazed. When ’em ses, ‘ Come along. Uncle, 
’tis time vor ye to be home,’ I’ll be ready, aw, and I’ll 
be glad, vor ’tis alius fine weather up over, and I be 
main cruel anxious to see Noah and Elijah and Simon 
Peter and all the other gentlemen what ’em tells about 
here. There wun’t be weeping, nor yet gnashin’ o’ teeth, 
and I be glad on’t, vor I ha’ done my weeping down here 
along, and I ain’t got no teeth to gnash.” 

It was August before Winnie received permission to 
go down to St. Michael’s Ford. So far there had been 
nothing said concerning their future life. When George 
tried to talk seriously she always said, “ Wait till we go 
down to the Ford,” and he knew what she meant. It 


Heather 


472 

was there they had met on the earlier stage of their 
perambulation ; it was there they were to finish the 
journey, among the ghosts of those who had crossed the 
Ford completing their journey, settling the bounds, bring- 
ing liberty, appointing the great Forest as a free and 
open space for all time. It was a hot day, so they did 
not start until after tea; and when they came within 
sight of the green water, which was listless at that time 
of the year, the sun was low and the air was a clear 
haze of gold. 

They did not talk much as they went down treading 
upon unwritten pages of history. Winnie had been in- 
clined for mischief, having discovered there was little 
to grumble at; but when she saw the green oaks she was 
serious. There was life ahead and the difficulties of life. 
The old wheal had given her dreams, happy ones, but 
there had been corners which the colours could not reach, 
where shapes were crouching. Hawkers and Halfacres 
who might still bring trouble and foul smoke across the 
landscape. Even if she was pretty and lowly Goldilocks 
whom the prince must come for in the end however rude 
and cruel the herd-boys might be, even if she was the 
luck child who must win what she was born to win, there 
were still the dark corners, and the storm-wind would 
blow again. . Kings and Queens when they come into 
their kingdom know the tempest is never far away, and 
if they are to beat it, so far as mortals can beat it, they 
must hold on; and the only root that will cling is the 
root of patience, and the only growth that will not break 
is the one that bends. George and Winnie were coming 
into their kingdom, receiving hope as they entered it, 
and it was the kingdom of chaste love, a land far off and 
almost fabulous, which only the very patient and very 
loving can ever hope to find. They were simply hand-in- 
hand lovers, opening the window of dreamland to look 
out over the world of dust and noise; and merely as 
lovers they were common people; for one person in love 
is merely the repetition of any other; they are the same 
actors with different names ; dark or fair men, they are 
alike in their prayer to Venus for one of her team of white 
doves; blue or black-eyed girls, they bare their bosoms 
to get their hearts stabbed. 


About a Twilight of Gold 473 

“We have come at last,” cried George. 

“The very evening. Perfect calm,” sighed Winnie. 

She seated herself upon the flat stone, which had always 
been there and would never be removed, and George 
placed himself at her feet. 

“ May I talk, Winnie?” 

“ Yes, about anything you like. One moment though. 
You have been giving me everything and I have given 
you nothing. What would you say if you looked up and 
an acorn dropped right upon your mouth?” 

“ I should say the tree had made a very good shot.” 

“ Look up,” she said softly. 

He did so, and she kissed him, with a pretty sound. 

“ Shameless,” she whispered. “ I promised myself I 
would directly we came down here. Now you know 
what belongs to you, though of course you knew 
before. ” 

“ Forgive me for having been a fool,” said George. 

“Here’s my hand; such a fat one. There is not a 
ring upon it.” 

“ Where are they?” 

“ I threw them out of the window. Perhaps they 
rolled into the wheal and will be dug out some day.” 

“ Some one will say they belonged to the time of the 
Druids. ” 

“ When they were the chains of a girl’s captivity.” 

“ Winnie — dearest Dimples, why didn’t I know be- 
fore?” cried George. “ It was all my own fault.” 

“ It wasn’t mine. Nothing has ever been my fault, 
and I have kept my promises. I said I would fight my- 
self well, and here I am.” 

Very fresh and pretty she was too in her light clothing. 
There were no dirty boots, there was no mud on her 
petticoat; she looked almost the same as that pink girl 
who had sat on that same stone and listened to that 
same man following the course of the Perambulators. 
There were some little lines on her face, which the 
cottage upon St. Piran’s sands had left behind, and there 
was a faint shadow beneath each eye; but George called 
them beauty marks, and so they were. Her flaxen hair 
was fluffy in the breeze, and the golden twilight dropped 
an aureole around it. 


474 Heather 

“ Promise me one more thing, darling — never to be ill 
again.” 

” Why yes, I’ll promise that too. I must have little 
illnesses, colds and headaches, but I won’t have any more 
big ones. Just think. Gee, of all the time I have wasted 
in bed when I might have been brushing your coat. Where 
are those old clothes?” she asked sternly, though 
Winnie’s attempt at sternness was like a rose trying not 
to smell nice. 

‘ ‘ They are in a box somewhere. I should have worn 
them again if I had lost you.” 

“I shall give them to Bill, and tell him to burn them 
— all except that dear old coat. I shall keep that,” said 
Winnie brightly, ” and brush it once a week.” 

” It will fall to pieces,” laughed George. 

“ Then I shall sew it together again.” 

“ Now, darling,” said he, turning and looking up at 
her, ” let us talk away the biggest of our difficulties.” 

Winnie left the stone, sat on the grass beside him, and 
put her head upon his shoulder. 

” Any one looking?” she murmured. 

‘ ‘ The oaks and bracken and the stepping-stones of the 
Ford. The blackberries will be ripe next month,” cried 
George. ” I told you St. Michael’s blackberries are the 
finest in the world. We must make some jam, Winnie.” 

” Oh yes, we will do everything that’s lonely and 
lovely; but we mustn’t wander off now. We will have 
the nasty talk and then the nice talk. You are not going 
to blame me, Gee?” she asked wistfully. “ When you 
think of anything I have done you must say to yourself, 

‘ It wasn’t her fault. ’ You will remember she had a 
mother to keep, and a home to get somehow, and she was 
very weak-minded and a dreadful little corpse when they 
pulled her off the moor.” 

” The only person to be blamed is myself,” said George. 

^‘That’s far enough from the truth to be nearly a 
wicked story. Well, I’m going to shut my eyes and you 
are going to ask horrid questions. We will get it all 
over before the light leaves those rocks — the rocks of the 
moon you called them. You see I remember everything.” 

“ Here we go then,” said George. “ Have you heard 
anything of that man?” 


About a Twilight of Gold 475 

Winnie made her well-known movement in the negative, 
then said quickly, “ He doesn’t know where I am. Thinks 
I am dead, probably, and doesn’t care.” 

” I told the doctor he was dead.” 

“So he is — to us. ” 

“ But you are still his ” 

“ I am not. He went off with that Oh, Gee, the 

awful face that girl had.” 

“ The only thing will be a divorce.” 

“ I won’t have that,” said Winnie, starting up and 
opening her eyes. “ I am not going to have your name 
dragged in the dirt. What a sordid business it would be, 
what horrible things would have to come out, and how 
people would gloat over what they would call the sensa- 
tional details in the life of the young woman whom the 
famous artist, George Brunacombe, wanted to marry. 
It might do you a lot of harm. People would say you 
aren’t respectable; they love to fling dirt at a well-known 
man. And as for me; well, I should be something 
especially terrible from the pit of corruption.” 

“ But, darling ” 

“Let me talk,” said Winnie. “You can’t arrange 
anything, because you are always thinking of me. I can 
do it much better. Gee, dearest old boy, I love you, and 
I am going to live with you as your wife and take your 
name if you will give it me. It’s not as if anybody would 
know, and that man will never try to find me again, and 
if he did you wouldn’t let him come near me.” 

“ Bill would throw him down the wheal,” said George 
savagely. 

“ He couldn’t harm me because he would be afraid of 
his own life being exposed. Do I seem very shameless? 
It’s for your sake, and there is Bubo to think of too. How 
flustered he would be if they put him into the witness- 
box. Ever since the dark and awful time in Tomkins 
Street I have been trying to help myself. Now I have 
got to help the firm as well. You see I can be strong- 
minded when I like,” said Winnie impertinently. 

“ Dimples darling, I am so afraid the truth might 
come out.” 

“ Let it. Do you care?” 

“ Not a straw.” 


Heather 


476 

“ I don’t either. The truth wouldn’t get beyond Dart- 
moor, and your fame is in the world. Now there is the 
child,” said Winnie, with a little gasp, shutting her eyes 
again. ” It’s your turn to talk. Gee. Go on.” 

“You must tell me what you want, dear.” 

” Whatever you want.” 

“We had better leave her where she is. She is well 
cared for. And if we like her later on — and there is 
nothing mentally or morally wrong ” 

“We can adopt her,” murmured she. “Yes, that’s 
settled. There’s no time for any more talk, horrid talk, 
for the light is nearly off the rocks, and we must go 
home. Oh, it’s a lovely home at Wheal Dream.” 

“ I shall make inquiries. The police will know the 
man,” said George. “ I want you bound to me, sweet 
Dimples. ” 

“ So I am with all my heart-strings. What a lot he 
wants,” said she merrily. “ He thinks I’ll run away 
from him,” she said to St. Michael’s Ford. Then she be- 
came serious. “ Gee, let’s marry now in this golden 
twilight, let’s have a wonderful dreamland marriage.” 

Up she jumped, crying, “ Come along, if you love me. 
I am so well, so strong. I am never going to die now.” 

“ Where are you going, sweetheart?” 

“To church. Come along quick, or the doors will be 
shut, and St. Michael will have gone home to supper. 
Surely St. Michael is a good enough parson for us. Come 
along. Gee, to the green shelf above the waterfall, and 
we’ll be married there.” 

“ Where’s the ring, darling?” 

“ I’ll make one. Here’s a stalk of heather. It bends 
but it won’t break. Here is the ring. You mustn’t 
laugh. Gee, or St. Michael will be cross and say we 
must come again another day. Now we cross the Ford. 
Then for the bank of violets — it will be all dark-green in 
this light, and the waterfall will be thundering like an 
organ. ” 

George entered into her mood. He saw what she 
wanted, that they should vow fidelity to one another above 
the waterfall. It was to be their marriage ceremony, 
and the only one they were likely to have; and what 
could be better when the heart was right? Cupid laughs 


About a Twilight of Gold 477 

at conventtan; He sets up the idol and riddles it into 
rags with his arrows. They were children of the moor, 
and the}' were to be joined together like earth and sun 
in the invisible bonds and splendid warmth of a passion- 
ately chaste love. 

They crossed the Ford; their figures could be seen 
between the oaks. Then they began to sing ; and so they 
passed away to where the waterfall was thundering, and 
§t. Michael came hurrying down from his ruined chapel 
and asked why they had been so long. 

George did make inquiries ; but it was some time before 
he learnt how Halfacre had broken down in every way, 
and had been compelled to seek the shelter of the cottage 
home where he had been born ; nor was it long afterwards 
when the two maiden ladies, who had befriended the poor 
scholar through his short and strange existence, received 
a dirty and illiterate letter ; and they read — 

“ Dear Madams, 

“ I am Sorry to tell you poor Richard had to be 
taken away to the Silam on Wendsday Morning his Mine 
was gott so bad I could not stay in the house. He took 
out A knife to kill me Once and he would not pull his 
Cloths off. We could not stop in the house were He 
was and He wrote letters to some of the Gentry and 
throwed stones at there Motocar the Doctor said it was 
not safe to stay in the house were He was and He was 
A terror to the Village and He must be put away it is 
sad Many thanks for your kindness in the past yours 
truely, 

“John Halfacre.” 


THE END 


Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 

BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND 
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. 


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